When the warmth of summer fades in Cape Town, and the Atlantic becomes a menacing steel-grey tundra, reading season more diligently begins. This week’s curated book list brings together fashion memoirs, cult fiction, fantasy escapes, and must-read non-fiction – perfect for anyone wondering what to read right now.

That book that was dragged to poolsides and barely dug into is now the season’s hottest To-Do.

To me, books feel like long conversations, slow burns, vivid paintings, or evergreen worlds you can disappear into between cups of tea; That’s why I’ve been building a library of my own in my apartment that’s also less about aesthetic performativity and more authentic immersion – including that unfinished sand-dusted novel.

I’m not as brave in books as I am with films, though, but I’m willing to give a whole new eclectic mix of books a chance (so leave a comment with recommendations!).

This week’s rotation moves between high fashion and high fantasy, with a few deliciously obsessive detours in between – very on-brand for me! Think: industry legends, gothic undertones, and stories with just enough escapism to balance out the season.

1. For the Fashion-Obsessed: Power, Persona, and the Price of Taste

“The Chiffon Trenches” by André Leon Talley
In the grand and storied history of world fashion and editorial, one key figure saw the famine of beauty and did his part to endow his world and ours with a magnificently tasteful bit of it.

The late Andre Leon Talley wasn’t just someone I admired; he was a bastion of the art, labour, and sacrifice of fashion – having earned his place among the stars with a fashion intellect that is still deemed incomparable today. A student of fashion as well as a dictator of taste, his book is unflinchingly honest, incisive, and oh so grand. To me, this is more than a memoir but probably one of the last chapters of a legendary era of fashion and editorial. (Having attended and covered fashion weeks around the world for more than a decade, I think I can say that.)

Allow yourself to be led by Talley into industry inner sanctums where he marvels, navigates, and unravels the glamour, the art, the work, and the cliques. For a man who was invariably a legend, his exclusion and the hard conversations and observations he made echo today. This is a book not to ignore – sharp, revealing, and impossible to ignore!

“Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster” by Dana Thomas
If you ever wondered where modern luxury started and how it reached its present-day disarray, this book is a necessary read from a lauded authority in world fashion.

Thomas gives the industry an autopsy – offering up an education transplant on the machinery behind luxury.

This is the book you read when you want to understand how, for example, heritage became mass production – and what that means for the future of luxury.

Best accompaniment? The fashion documentary mini-series “Kingdom of Dreams”.

Vivienne Westwood (Coffee Table Book)
When I’m often asked to define myself on the fashion front, I always say I always bring Westwood into it because so much of the designer, the brand, and its creations speak to me.

This stellar coffee table book is my incredible treasure: Part archive. Part provocation.

Westwood’s work was never just fashion – it was always rebellion, politics, and cultural commentary stitched into fabric. This is the kind of book you don’t just read; you live with it, and return to certain pages like visual manifestos.

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2. For When You Want to Escape (But Intelligently)

“Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
It’s their brand and their cross to bear – producing something witty, irreverent, and oddly comforting.

For those unfamiliar with the hit television show starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, the premise is basically: it’s the apocalypse – but make it charming and subvert divine lore!

Written with such vivid imaginations in mind, there’s a rhythm to this book that feels plucked right from the silver screen – its best bits being a balancing of absurdity with surprisingly profound observations about humanity.

This is the keeper you pass down generationally!

“The Resurrectionist” by E.B. Hudspeth
I’m a little dark and twisty thing (which explains why I love horror movies so much), and find the curios, lore, cryptids, etc. of the world fascinating – thus having added this one to my wish list years ago as a collectable.

Dark, intricate, and slightly unsettling, it reads like a textbook and diary by Wednesday Addams.

This is 100% for readers who like their fiction with a gothic edge – part narrative, part illustrated curiosity. It feels like discovering a beautifully-bound secret Grimm diary.

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3. Romance, But Elevated: Legacy, Magic, and Emotional Stakes

“Stars of Fortune” by Nora Roberts
There’s something quietly addictive about Roberts at her best, and honestly, even when she’s phoning it in.

This one leans into fantasy in that amazing way she does – weaving together fate, power, and a cast of characters you settle into quickly. I rarely see people like me described in her books (her central protagonists always falling into the white or exotic dusky archetype), but it doesn’t mean I can’t escape into the books.

“Born in Fire” by Nora Roberts
Grounded, atmospheric, and steeped in Irish landscape and emotion – those seeking less brilliant flights of magical fancy, but more earth-bound sparkle, can start this book.

Halfway in so far, and it does deal in less spectacle and more rooted characters and their realistic preoccupations.

It is ideal for slower, more reflective reading days.

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4. For the Cult Fiction Lover

“A Vampire, Interrupted” by Lynsay Sands
I’m not too ashamed to enjoy a vampire novel. I was, after all, the core target market when they once again rose up in popularity.

Since first grabbing one of her books in an absolutely amazing bookstore in Port Elizabeth, I’ve realised there are writers with very large vamp series under this genre, and haven’t stopped collecting her books since then – if nothing else, they’re quite easy reads.

Playful, indulgent, and self-aware is pretty much apropos for any of Lynsay Sands books, and this one isn’t any different.

Remember: Not everything needs to be heavy. This is the kind of book you reach for (usually at airports) when you want something entertaining without sacrificing personality.

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5. The Obsession Read

“Heat” by Bill Buford
I’m a sucker for the things the late Anthony Bourdain recommended – from knives to hotels – and he recommended this book too, so I had to dive in!

I was surprised how this one got intense. Buford’s deep dive into the world of professional kitchens is, delightfully for me, equal parts memoir and immersion journalism.

“Heat” is meticulous, obsessive, and strangely gripping from the ranks of seasoned chefs. By the time you finish, it best feels like the literary equivalent of watching a perfectly executed dish come together under pressure.

“The Big Short” by Michael Lewis (featuring Michael Burry)
More than smart-sounding soundbites clipped together from TV interviews, skewered opinion pieces of people trying to seem like they predicted it, and quarterly earnings reports from a frankly insane financial era in America (and worldwide), this book is educational and a pretty entertaining read with Burry at the centre of it.

The unassuming, deeply analytical hedge fund manager was the brain that saw what almost no one else did: that the U.S housing market of that period was propped up by illusion and hectic excess. He predicted that it was destined to collapse.

Lewis transforms complex financial instruments into a (understandable to the layman) narrative that feels almost cinematic – where intuition, obsession, and isolation intersect. Way before we had the movie that would star some of Hollywood’s heavyweights explaining this era using an adapted script from this very book, Lewis wrote the lengthy reality with real relationships and devolving systems at play.

It’s less about finance, ultimately, and more about conviction – the kind that requires standing alone, trusting your read of the world, and enduring being misunderstood until, suddenly, you’re not.