we love melinda and melinda loves...

Melinda Williams is the editor of one of our favourite magazines, NO MAGAZINE, which you should read if you haven't already - Zoe and I have both been lucky enough to write for it too. We met her at this party and got talking over pizza and New Zealand's Next Top Model. You know how it is. The next week Melinda emailed me the most beautiful quote from her favourite book. I wanted to know more, so I asked for a top ten... and I love what I got. 

1. Cormac McCarthy. My favourite author. His books aren’t for the faint of heart – they’re raw and bloody, but astonishing, and speak of McCarthy’s deep love for nature and understanding of humanity’s contrariness.

2. My dog Mac. He goes pretty much everywhere with me.

3. True Blood. Anna Paquin with blonde hair, vampires with Southern accents and good manners, and hot sex. Also, the best title sequence on TV.

4. The Veils. A band born in NZ, based in London, they make gloriously harsh and haunting folk-rock for the backstreets and badlands. Their new album Sun Gangs is amazing.

5. Birds. I love their mix of delicacy, beauty, strength and reptilian creepiness. White herons are my favourite.

6. The Princess Bride. My comfort film. I have watched it at least 50 times and I know every line. Not just the Inigo Montoya one and the iocaine powder dialogue and ‘As you wish’, but every single line from start to finish.

7. Sichuan Steamboat. There is a place on Dominion Rd where you can get all-you-can-eat seafood, meat and veges in a mouth-numbing chilli hotpot that you cook at a burner on your table for just $18. And it’s BYO beer.

8. Thunderstorms. They would almost make winter bearable if it wasn’t for the fact that the best ones are in summer.

9. Australian photographer Narelle Autio. I love her underwater images of swimmers at Bondi Beach.

10. Brake House. Designed by Ron Sang in the 1970s, it is an icon of New Zealand architecture, hidden in the Titirangi bush. One day it will be mine.