When planning my literary pilgrimage through England to see the homes of my favourite writers, one non-negotiable stop was visiting the small brick cottage in Hampshire where English literary rose, Jane Austen, once lived and wrote.
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The Netherlands became a special part of my life when I fell in love with a Dutchman. Even though we chose to make our home together in Melbourne, part of having a European boyfriend is that you gain a second home on the other side of the world. In my case, a little Dutch village called Nieuwkoop, just 40km from Amsterdam.
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There are a multitude of reasons why Edinburgh was crowned the first UNESCO City of Literature, from its exceptional libraries, quirky independent bookshops, and illustrious literary history, the Scottish capital is a wonderland for bibliophiles.
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Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome Daisy Jones and the Six to the stage! A book so dangerously addictive that you’ll want to clear your weekend to binge the whole thing in one sitting. Sleep is optional. Daisy Jones and the Six was written by the talented Taylor Jenkins Reid, who also wrote The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, another fictional biography that I can’t wait to get my nose stuck into.
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In the pretty riverside town of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, the most northerly city in the United Kingdom, you will find the iconic Leakey’s Bookshop. This one of a kind shop is literally an old Gaelic church filled floor to ceiling with beautiful books.
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The first stop on my little Jane Austen road trip was Bath, where Jane lived between 1801 and 1806, and set two novels, Northanger Abbey & Persuasion. The problematic nature of being a woman in Regency England was that you had to marry to secure your future. Jane Austen wove this predicament into her novels, implying ever so gently that this was utter nonsense.
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Emily Brontë’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, has been dividing audiences for nearly two centuries. Readers will either hate this book with the fire of a thousand suns or love it, there is no middle ground. Wuthering Heights is an estate on the Yorkshire Moors, a bleak and unwelcoming home, haunted by ghosts of the past. A housekeeper, Nelly Dean, tells a tale of the family who lived there before, recounting the chain of events that lead back to the present day where a brooding tyrant is now master of the house.
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Tucked away on a quiet street off bustling Kings Road, is a wonderful independent bookshop, John Sandoe Books. The bookshop remains in the original location on Blacklands Terrace where John Sandoe himself first set up shop, now spanning three side by side stores acquired over fifty years.
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Shakespeare and Co is an independent English language bookshop that has hosted a myriad of creatives over the past seventy years as the inadvertent home of the Anglo-American literary community in Paris. A treasure trove of coloured spines, velvet chairs, and wall to wall shelves with books squeezed into every possible nook and cranny.
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Once upon a chilly Sunday morning, the call of a million books drew me out of bed to the State Library of Victoria. The middle of autumn is my favourite time in Melbourne, crisp air fills your lungs, the parks are a glittering shade of gold, the aroma of freshly ground coffee floats through the air, and an abundance of pink camellias are in full bloom.
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Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is home to over 8,000 pieces of priceless art, including the masterpieces of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Steen… but did you know about the secret library? Well, it’s not really a secret, but there is a magnificent art history library inside that the museum is easy to miss, unless you know where to look!
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A once wandering 1920’s barge has taken up permanent residence along York Way on London’s Granary Square, just a short walk from Kings Cross and the British Library. Yet, this is no ordinary passenger barge, it’s a floating bookshop called Word on the Water – a trove of new and pre-loved books stacked amidst a funky bohemian ambience.
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Who knew that the pretty South Australian city of Adelaide was hiding such a gorgeous library? I had no idea, and what a very special discovery it was. I just happened to be perusing one of those Top 20 Most Beautiful Libraries articles and the State Library of South Australia was there on the list.
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Eleanor Oliphant is the literary heroine we never knew we needed. A peculiar thirty-year-old woman who rarely strays from the routine of her lacklustre job as a finance clerk, scheduled Wednesday night chats with Mummy, and her enduring love of vodka and Tesco pizza – she has things under control.
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When I see a beautiful edition of a classic novel that I want to add to my collection, I can’t help myself. The problem is that I am prone to buying doubles, triples, and even quadruples of my favourite novels. Please help me, I have six copies of Pride and Prejudice! As a potential solution to curb my little book problem, I have set myself a fairly long list of classic novels that I want to read over the next couple of years.
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There are stories to tell in every aspect of daily life, even the simplest tasks have a narrative. I am endlessly fascinated by the human psyche and the way that our minds control our entire world. Reading provides a socially acceptable outlet to try on all sorts of lives and minds. As children, we are taught that magic only exists in fairytales, but reading transports us to the past and the future, mythical worlds, far away galaxies, exotic lands, the apocalypse, and beyond. So who can really say that books are not magical objects?
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Bright by name, bright by nature. The picturesque Victorian township of Bright is an autumnal paradise set afire with colours of the changing season every April, offering mild sunny days and cosy evenings just perfect for a smoky wood fire, glass of red, and abundant cheese board. We travelled to Bright one week before the gala weekend, which is usually held in the final weekend of April. Good timing combined with a rainy weather forecast meant that the town was relatively quiet, making our weekend trip all the more tranquil.
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In this modern age, receiving anything by post is a rare occurrence, so you can imagine how overjoyed I was to find an invitation to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society movie premiere in my letterbox. As I ripped open the envelope I was immediately intrigued by the peculiar title and curious to find out what a potato peel pie has to do with a literary society, and what the heck is a potato peel pie? Despite the funny title, this was a gorgeous film with a huge heart.
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To mark the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, the Dressing Australia – Museum of Costume is presenting a rare and wonderful exhibition bringing the era of Jane Austen to life with original items of the time. Be Persuaded features fashion, accessories and ephemera from the 18th century, rarely on display outside of major museums. Despite her fame, Jane Austen remains a mysterious figure in so many ways. This beautiful exhibition offers a glimpse into the world in which she existed, highlighting the symbolic role that fashion played in the Regency period.
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Stop and smell the roses are words I live by. Nothing in life has given me greater joy than spending time in my grandmother’s garden talking to the flowers and addressing them by their names as if they were all pretty ladies. Knees covered in dirt, making daisy chains in the grass and plucking petals from roses.
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Perfect blue skies and glorious summer sunshine is the perfect reason to dust off the picnic basket, fill it with delicious treats and take Mum on a magical mystery girls day out. The stunning Werribee Mansion was our secret destination, an Italianate grand residence built during the Victorian period. Commissioned in 1874 by wealthy Scots who planted vast orchards yielding apples, pears, peaches, nuts and olives. Australia is a modern nation, so mansions are especially rare.
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Triennial was the most recent show stopping exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. My diary has been so busy lately that I nearly considered giving this exhibition a miss, but at the eleventh hour a friend invited me and thank goodness she did! Triennial was superb, albeit different to my usual tastes, but it would have been a shame to miss this thought provoking collection of global art.
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A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf’s thought provoking thesis had such a profound impact upon me the first time I laid my eyes upon it. What could I possibly say about this remarkable piece of work without merely copying and pasting all of the paragraphs I love and gushing about their brilliance? Which I have done below anyway.
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A beautiful highlight of our summer is the flow of Dutch visitors that come in pursuit of a warm Aussie summer away from the wintery weather of the Netherlands. When my Dutchman made the decision to stay permanently in Australia, the hardest sacrifice was leaving behind the people he loves in Holland, so having family and friends come to stay is such an important part of our lives.
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To celebrate seventy years of The House of Dior, the National Gallery of Victoria hosted an exclusive exhibition of Dior Haute Couture from 1947 to 2017. The exhibition was laid out like a timeline, beginning with the classic silhouettes and simple designs of the 1940’s all the way through to the experimental avant-garde designs of the modern era. There was a noticeable fluctuation of style as you progressed through the exhibition. From the iconic designs of Christian Dior himself, to Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, and the first female head designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri.
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The Windsor Hotel is undoubtedly the home of Melbourne’s grandest afternoon high tea. Mum and I plan a special girls outing there at least once a year, often we are celebrating a special occasion and other times the special occasion is just life. This time around it was all about my gorgeous Mum, Annie, in celebration of Mother’s Day.
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Giverny in Normandy, France is home to a place that has been on my travel wish list for decades, the lovely garden and estate of Impressionist artist, Claude Monet, who lived for over 40 years in this small village along the banks of the River Seine. It was in Giverny that Monet found inspiration and produced some of his most impressive paintings, including the waterlilies series modelled on his garden.
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On my last day in France, I figured there was no better way to end my Parisian spree than wandering all 800 hectares of the most beautiful palace in France, Château de Versailles. My morning began on a stressful note. I set 0ff to the St Michel railway station bright and early to catch the RER C line to Versailles, but upon arrival at the station I was met with locked doors.
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Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is a little different to the wintery images most people associate with the festive period. We enjoy sunshine instead of snow, chilled beer instead of mulled wine, and fresh seafood instead of turkey with all the trimmings.
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I have found the perfect Sunday afternoon film, Love and Friendship, the comical adaptation of the novella, Lady Susan. Posters for the film were plastered all over the tube on my last trip to London and as soon as I got home to Australia I beelined for the cinema. Lady Susan is one of the few works of Jane Austen that I have never actually read, so it was a beautiful treat to enter the cinema completely unsure of what to expect. Given that Lady Susan is not a particularly well known work, I was anticipating Love and Friendship to be quite dull.
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I first became acquainted with eccentric consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, when I enrolled in a Victorian Literary Culture class at university. From the very first case, A Study in Scarlet, I was immediately drawn into the murky crime-ridden streets of London, and within two years I had inhaled every single Sherlock Holmes story ever written. The Victorian era (1837 – 1901) has become synonymous with progression, innovation, and rapid social change – and the literary scene was much the same.
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Ripponlea House and Gardens in Elsternwick are one of Melbourne’s best kept secrets and a place that is very dear to my heart. A grand estate built in 1868 as a luxury family home, which remained so for over a century until the house was passed on to the National Trust of Australia in 1972.
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Book snobs are an inevitable part of the literary community, but instead of scoffing at the choices of other readers, how about we celebrate all books that inspire people to read. Have you noticed that popular books have a habit of becoming critically unpopular once they garner too much attention? The hysteria of the Twilight series swept up even the most unlikely of bookworms? From literary beginnings came the mania of the film series, the exponential growth of teen vampire fiction, and then the backlash. Within a couple of years, Twilight went from undead to dead.
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Yesterday I saw the new film adaptation of the classic novel by Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd. Let’s be honest, the book is always better than the film, but I actually love watching my favourite books come to life on the big screen. Film adaptations of books are notoriously disappointing because when we read the novel plays like a movie in our own head, we get to cast all of the characters and give depth and detail to every word, so it’s not entirely surprising that we often walk out of the cinema feeling frustrated with the casting or unexpected changes and omissions.
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Sometimes a long weekend spent in your own company is just what you need to fully recharge your batteries. Three days dedicated to taking care of myself – solitude, reading, cooking, writing, pampering, walks, and sleeping. Life has been hectic and after having guests in our house all summer, I am done with people. Having a few days downtime has been a blessing. I am a casebook introvert, so I find being around people for long periods of time absolutely exhausting.
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Winter in Melbourne has a way of inspiring a desire to fly away somewhere warm. We live by the sea on the southern coast of Australia where the water is freezing in the winter, so on a whim snuggled up in bed one chilly night we booked some flights northward to tropical Port Douglas where the water is 26 degrees.
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Located in Lisse, the tulip capital of the Netherlands, is Keukenhof – the most beautiful spring garden in the world. 79 acres of gardens filled with 7 million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. Keukenhof (translation kitchen garden) is the loveliest place to get lost amongst the flowers.
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The Turn of the Screw is perhaps the most famous ghost story ever written. To this day there are elements of this creepy tale woven into the framework of the horror genre. Gothic literature is my obsession, I love the suspense, intrigue, and mystery. The Turn of the Screw features a big haunted house, an isolated woman, beautiful yet creepy children, menacing ghosts and unexplained occurrences that leave you both perplexed and infuriated. This novella was published in 1898 at the very end of the Victorian era, yet the story itself is quite different to other stories produced at this time.
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Highclere Castle has become one of England’s most recognisable homes, as the real life setting and filming location of television series, Downton Abbey. I have seen every single episode of Downton and grew to love the characters, their fanciful plots, and the centrepiece at the heart of the show – the house itself. Highclere Castle is an elaborate Jacobethan style castle set upon 1,000 acres in Hampshire, England. George and Fiona Herbert are the current Lord and Lady, known more formally as the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon.
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When Bendigo Art Gallery announced that glamorous costumes of Marilyn Monroe would be showcased in Australia I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see a piece of the world’s most famous blonde bombshell, in the middle of country Victoria of all places! Marilyn remains the enduring poster girl of classic Hollywood, from humble beginnings as Norma Jeane Baker to the ultimate screen siren. This beautiful exhibition, presented by Twentieth Century Fox and the Bendigo Art Gallery included 20 original costumes from some of Marilyn’s most iconic roles
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Set in 1912, Suffragette unfolds the story of Maud Watts, a young wife and mother unintentionally swept up in the women’s suffrage movement. The film is largely work of fiction blended with real historical events and figures to recreate the turbulent fight for the female vote in Great Britain. Suffragette offers a snapshot of London prior to the outbreak of the First World War when the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) actively pursued the right to vote through acts of civil disobedience, militancy and insurgency.
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