Reading in Autumn

Things I'm reading in Autumn: Fete Magazine including the Daylesford dinner (that I went to!)...I finished The Goldfinch and loved...a good reminder of how we never know what people are facing privately...a delicious new blog...and is the Internet making it harder for us to read books??

Above images all from Fete Mag...watercolour of Fete photo by Waterlogue

I was SO excited to pick up the latest copy of Fete Magazine because this was the issue that covered the dinner I went to that they hosted at the White House in Daylesford. I graciously managed to get the back of my head in one of the photographs and they included an excerpt from my blog post in the article...so that was fun! The whole issue is, as always, beautiful...and I totally use it to bribe myself into doing something boring like decluttering the house before I'm allowed to sit down and savour each page. I suggest you do the same...not declutter your house...but pick up a copy so you can soak up the Fete goodness! Also you can read this great interview with Annabelle on the Temple & Webster blog.

Ok...I'm a little bit obsessed with the Waterlogue app!

So, onto some other good things I've been reading lately...

• This post by Whoorl. Sarah is the kind of person who always looks effortlessly glamourous in photos, has two adorable kids, an interior designer husband and an insanely popular blog. I can only guess at how it must've felt to post something so personal, about her struggles with crippling anxiety and other medical hurdles she has recently faced. It reinforced to me (as I have come across this theme a lot in life and reading lately) that anyone can be very capable of appearing like they have everything together and then some on the surface, but going a few layers deeper can reveal a different story...and it's ok not to be 100% sorted 100% of the time, thanks for sharing Sarah.
• I finished The Goldfinch (and it took way less time than I thought!) I don't often read massive books (I think the paper version is 700 pages or something?) but when you're swiping through it on the Kindle you don't even notice it's a monster size. I loved it...and I could see what people meant about not wanting to finish it in a hurry. "Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. "
• Galina Dixon is a new-to-me blog I've just started reading and I have to say I think she's a keeper. Gorgeous hand lettering, paper sculptures...a designer and typographer living in Sydney with a drool-worthy instagram feed. She's been to Megan Morton's styling workshop...oh how I wish!! So lovely, so worth checking out.
• This article from The Age about how the internet is making it harder to read books. It discusses the idea that our brains are re-training themselves to scan information and take in bits and pieces but not start to finish pieces as a whole. That reading older style literature that takes greater concentration because of more complex sentence structures...something we might need to teach our brains how to absorb again.  I have to say it does sound legit. Also, I totally found myself scanning the article for key points rather than reading start to finish even though I knew it was about that very subject...maybe I need to pick up some Henry James and get back on track! P.S. Pip read and posted about the same thing this week...check out her post about how books aren't tabs...isn't that the perfect description for this changed style of reading!