book reviews with my mother

One afternoon, my mother and I sat around my living room and she rifled through two of the books I'd lugged home.

What: Musee Marmottan's Marie Laurencin's exhibition book

Where: the Pompidou Centre bookstore, Paris

Mum's rating: 10/10. I could have easily predicted this. My mother loves beautiful things and Marie Laurencin's decorative painting style of pale, lissom girls with pearls twirling through their hair was always gonna be a winner with her. She looked at this book for a long, long time.

"Beautiful. Oh Ana, this is beautiful."

After I tell her that Japan is the Number 1 collector of Parisian, Marie Laurencin's, paintings. "I can see why the Japanese would like these. There's something...ah... the style is so French but it has that something that Japanese would like."

When I tell her Picasso was one of Marie Laurencin's friends, she sniffs, "I never liked Picasso." 

What: I Have AI: Ai Takahasi Stylebook 2

From: Bunkyo-do Bookstore in the bowels of the Hamamatsucho station, Tokyo. They make a book cover at the counter for every book you buy. Packaging game in Tokyo is on.

Mum's Rating: a lukewarm 6/10, mainly saved by a deep appreciation of the bow on the back of Ai's wedding dress.

"Who is this?" my mum asks, confused. I tell her Ai Takahashi is a Japanese pop star and blogger. "With a book?!" she exclaims. With a book.

On Ai getting married in Hawaii "That bow is cute."