How to Live in Flip-Flops

How to Live in Flip-Flops - sounds great to me, now if only I could find a job or get paid to sit at the beach and live in flip flops!

In How to Live in Flip-Flops, Sandy Gingras helps readers forget the complicated in favor of the simple, wonderful things in life. Gingras's delightful watercolors and poetic prose showcase the benefits of slowing down and finding happiness in the things that really matter. Whether or not you're at the beach, everyone can relate to the laid-back easiness that comes with living in flip-flops. Includes charming maxims such as: Lose the uncomfortable shoes, be thankful, smell like a coconut and go slowly to see the little things.

Like I Give a Frock

Like I Give a Frock: Fashion Forecasts and Meaningless Misguidance -- Wonder when a baguette became a bag and not just a hunk of bread? (Fendi, 1998.) Or when it became acceptable to wear a tracksuit to the supermarket? (It didn't.) Fishnets at work? How to conceal the misfortune of the cankle? Fashion forecaster Michi answers all. In this stylish primer, she tells it like it is: No one looks good in mustard, unless you’re a hot dog. Matching whimsy with brutal honesty, Like I Give a Frock packs fashion illustration and musings into the prettiest package around. Kat Macleod's stunning collages bring Michi's wisdom to life.

Michi has an e-mail newsletter forecasting the latest in fashion. She is the creation of Chloe Quigley and Daniel Pollock, who live in Australia.Kat Macleod's illustrations have appeared in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and others. She lives in Australia.

The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund

The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund -- In the gilded age of a few months ago, hedge fund managers were the kings of ka-ching. Of course, now they're not, and there's a sparky frisson to Momzilla author Kargman's lively chronicle of a queen of ka-ching who ditches her hedge fund manager hubby. Hedge-fund wife Holly Talbott, 34, has forgone Botox and boob jobs and considers herself more J. Crew than J. Mendel. She also thinks she has a happy marriage despite her ferocious mother-in-law and the cattiness of keeping up with the yummy mummies of her son's schoolmates. But once she and best friend Kiki discover her husband's cheating ways, the knives come out: among other things, the tough pre-nup makes divorcing the ultra-rich hedgie trickier than she expects. Dating isn't much easier, but readers will know to hold out for the glowing happy ever after. Effervescent Holly's romp through wealthy Manhattan is a gleeful little bonbon.

Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story

I read an article about this book in Vogue a couple of months ago and meant to add it here on the blog. Who else loved her on Law & Order SVU??? Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story --Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life -- a handsome, intelligent, loving husband; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism. Suddenly, that life was over. Her husband, Josiah, announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons.

When Josiah took a teaching job at a Midwestern college, Isabel and their sons moved with him from New York City to Ohio, where Isabel taught acting, threw herself into the college community, and delighted in the less-scheduled lives of toddlers raised away from the city. But within a few months, the marriage was over. The life Isabel had made crumbled. "Happens every day," said a friend.

Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. Gillies has written a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life. On the one hand, reading this book is like watching a train wreck. On the other hand, as Gillies herself says, it is about trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, and loving your life even if it has slipped away. Hers is a remarkable new voice -- instinctive, funny, and irresistible.

Reunion

Reunion: A Novel -- Therese Fowler’s captivating new novel will resonate with every woman who has wondered what if—as a heartfelt drama of buried secrets and daring passion unfolds.

Celebrity talk show host Blue Reynolds is the queen of daytime television—she is smart, funny, and as down-to-earth as her adoring fans. In the eyes of the world, she has it all. But no one knows about the secret she has harbored for the last twenty years—a secret that could destroy her image, her reputation, and her career. Twenty years ago, she gave birth to a son and put him up for adoption through illegal channels. And every day since, she’s been filled with regret. Now Blue has hired a private investigator to find her son, knowing full well the consequences.

A week in Key West to do her show on location brings Blue a much-needed change of pace—and an unexpected reunion with an old flame, Mitch Forrester. Helping him launch a television series may help her recapture the kind of genuine romance and affection long missing from her life. But it also means having to deal with Mitch’s disapproving son, Julian, who is only nine years younger than Blue. Emotionally battered from his years as a war photographer in the world’s most dangerous hotspots, Julian struggles to get close to his father while making his disdain for Blue crystal clear—which makes his desire for her all the more shocking.

As serendipity and scandal collide, Therese Fowler’s passionate, illuminating novel takes a dramatic turn deep into our own hearts, as the healing power of love—family love, romantic love, and self-love—transforms pain and regrets into promises and second chances.

Serendipity

Serendipity: A Novel -- Louise Shaffer brings to life three generations of Italian American women in this stunning novel of surprises, secrets, and serendipity.A child of theatrical royalty, Carrie Manning is having a hard time getting her own act together. Thirty-seven, aimless, and having just buried a famous mother she never understood, she is desperate to uncover her family’s mysterious past in the hopes that it will help her understand herself.Carrie’s search reveals the fascinating life stories of her estranged grandmother Lu, a glamorous Broadway star whose dreams came with a price; her great grandmother Mifalda, who gave up everything to come to America as a sixteen-year-old Italian bride; and her father, Bobby, the charismatic Broadway genius who wrote some of Lu’s greatest musicals and died tragically young. At the heart of Carrie’s discoveries lies the reason for her mother’s complicated life, and a dark secret that has been buried for thirty years.

Fashionista: A Century of Style Icons

Fashionista: A Century of Style Icons

From Amazon: Instead of focusing on the designers that have made their marks in the past decades, this original and inspiring portrayal of style icons features the unforgettable faces and bodies that helped propel designers into the limelight over the years. Organized by timeless style sensibilities that reflect distinctive fashion identities, the book features a wide array of fashion icons, including sophisticates such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn, it-girls like Edie Sedgewick and Chloe Sevigny, bombshells like Marylin Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, and eccentrics like Bjork and Grace Jones. Each fashion icon is given her own generous two-page spread. Beautiful photographs illustrate how the subject personifies a certain quality of style, and fascinating texts discuss her influence and unique contributions to the world of fashion. This engaging and endlessly appealing celebration of style will please fashionistas of all ages and tastes.

SIMONE WERLE is a freelance fashion journalist based in Munich, whose articles have appeared in many publications, including InStyle and Elle.

The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present: A Novel

From Booklist via Amazon -- Vine, the pen name of Ruth Rendell (whose Reginald Wexford mysteries are among the best of contemporary British procedurals), turns in another involving stand-alone that explores the twists and turns of human behavior. Flipping between the perspectives of two unacquainted narrators, she chronicles the rise and fall of a self-indulgent British politician, whose career collapses, in part, because of a tragic stroke of bad luck. Ivor Tesham, a rising star in John Major’s liberal party, is shocked when he learns about the death of his mistress, killed in a car accident while on her way to him, bound and blindfolded, as the willing victim of a faux kidnapping meant to set the stage for a birthday gift of adventurous sex. Fearing public censure, Tesham stays quiet, despite the advice from his sister and brother-in-law. As might be expected, his selfish decision gradually ripples outward, leading to unexpected consequences not only for himself but also for the other vicitims of the accident—especially the woman’s troubled friend. As with her other psychological thrillers, Vine writes with calm elegance, slowly unravelling the story while constructing a strong sense of place, politics, and social class to support her players. It’s the very ordinariness of her characters and the randomness of their lives that create the drama here.

High Society

High Society: The History of America's Upper Class
Not really sure how well-received this book will be considering the current state of the world but this is definitely Assouline's bread and butter sort of title. You can read more by clicking the link above.

French Milk

French Milk --For her 22nd birthday—and her mother's 50th—Lucy Knisley and her mother went to Paris. For more than a month, they toured the City of Lights from their fifth arrondissement flat, exploring museums and cafes, taking photographs, eating pastries and drinking French milk, which Knisley says is sweeter than its American counterpart; she compares it with the influence we take in from our mothers. Knisley's first book is unquestionably a travel journal first and foremost: Lucy-the-writer is so close to Lucy-the-subject that at times the story lacks background and emotional complexity. But as a travel journal French Milk shines. Knisley's photographs from the trip punctuate sketches of her daily adventures and musings about graduating from art school, first love and having an adult relationship with her mother. Best of all are Knisley's portraits of home at the beginning and end of the book, which capture her childhood home and college life lovingly but with clear eyes. Knisley's cartoony drawings are pleasingly clean in one panel and tellingly detailed in the next. A word-of-mouth hit when it first came out in a self-published limited edition, French Milk will remind readers of their own early trips to Europe and of traveling in their 20s.

French Women Don't Sleep Alone

Saw French Women Don't Sleep Alone in Barnes & Noble and it gave me a chuckle. Not sure what it's all about but it looks entertaining and I may have to pick it up. This was even BEFORE I ended my engagement & booked myself a ticket to the City of Lights. Fate!

Kids Books: When Royals Wore Ruffles

When Royals Wore Ruffles: A Funny and Fashionable Alphabet! -- In this Hilarious, oh-so-fascinating trip through fashion history, a little girl goes back in time and meets a cast of characters wearing the latest trends. In B, we see Bustles, in H there’s sky-high hats (and hair!) and, in S, well, you won’t believe the shoes. And when the girl finishes her sylish trip—with Y for You and Your own Zany style—she puts on a fashion show for the people she’s met.

From fashionistas Chesley McLaren and Pamela Jaber comes an informative look at outrageous styles and how they came to be. With tidbits, anecdotes, and laugh-out-loud styles, this is the perfect picture book for fashion lovers everywhere.

Matthew Higgs: Never Look Back / Pressed / Fifteeen People Present Their Favorite Book

Matthew Higgs is an artist, a curator, a writer, a publisher and one of the truly vital forces shaping contemporary art. This an exhibition in three parts, with sections entitled Never Look Back; Pressed; and Fifteen People Present Their Favorite Book [After Kosuth], which demonstrates the variety of his creative work. Never Look Back is an exhibition of new work; it consists of framed book pages and photographs of books that are framed and hung on gallery walls. Pressed is an exhibition of letterpress prints by Peter Doig, Kay Rosen, Dave Muller, Rirkrit Tiravanija and others all published by White Columns, an alternative exhibition space in New York City where Higgs has been director and head curator since 2004.The central orienting point for the show is an installation of books entitled Fifteen People Present Their Favorite Book [After Kosuth]. This is a remake of a little known work by Joseph Kosuth from 1967 in which Kosuth took books chosen by Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Sol Lewitt and others and presented them as an installation in the Lannis Gallery. You can read more here.

Salvatore Ferragamo - Evolving Legend 1928-2008

Salvatore Ferragamo - Evolving Legend 1928-2008 -- The company Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A., founded in 1927 by designer Salvatore Ferragamo, is a luxury brand with more than 450 stores in over 55 countries. It sells footwear, handbags and small leather goods, scarves and ties, men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, bijoux, watches, fragrances and eyewear. Salvatore Ferragamo made the name famous in California, first in Santa Barbara and then in Hollywood, creating footwear for the most beautiful women in the world—the "divas" of emerging American cinema. This book is also the catalogue of an exhibition that took place at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (29 March–7 May 2008) to celebrate the eighty-year anniversary of the company. Photographs, sketches, and drawings explore design processes and showcase shoes, handbags, and accessories—a magnificent selection of fashion works embodying social and cultural changes over time.

Jen Lancaster: Pretty in Plaid

In Pretty in Plaid(to be released May 5th - pre-order now!), Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always “like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?” Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn’t know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life—and wardrobe—before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that).

Cheever: A Life

I am a HUGE fan of Cheever and his children as well! I can't wait to read Cheever: A Life -- here is the review from Publishers Weekly -- Rebellious Yankee son of a father who fell victim to the Depression and a doo-gooder-turned-businesswoman mother, father to three competitive children he rode mercilessly but adored, chronicler par excellence of the 1950s American suburban scene while deploring all forms of conformity: John Cheever (1912–1982) was a mass of contradictions. In this overlong but always entertaining biography, composed with a novelist's eye, Bailey, biographer of Richard Yates and editor of two volumes of Cheever's work for Library of America (also due in March), was given access to unpublished portions of Cheever's famous journals and to family members and friends. Bailey's book is fine in descriptions of Cheever's reactions to other writers, such as his adored Bellow and detested Salinger. Bailey is also sensitive in describing the prickly dynamic of Cheever's domestic life, lived through a haze of alcoholism and under the shadow of extramarital heterosexual and homosexual relationships. This Ovid in Ossining, who published 121 stories in the New Yorker as well as several bestselling novels, has probably yet to find a definitive position in American letters among academicians. This thoroughly researched and heartfelt biography may help redress that situation.

Forthcoming Biographies on Isabella Blow

Two biographies of Isabella Blow are in the works, and they’re taking very different views of the talented and troubled fashion stylist, who committed suicide in 2007. Lauren Goldstein Crowe, co-author of the upcoming “The Towering World of Jimmy Choo” (Bloomsbury, 2009), is penning a book that will focus on “the industry side of things, Isabella’s role as muse and her life — and career — in the greater context of luxury goods,” according to the author. Crowe believes Isabella may have been the last of a dying breed. “There are fewer and fewer roles in fashion for a purely creative persona,” she said. Her book will be published by St. Martin’s Press in December 2010.

Blow’s widower, Detmar Blow, and Tom Sykes, author of “What Did I Do Last Night?” (Ebury Press, 2007), are collaborating on a more personal account of Isabella’s life, according to Sykes, who met the subject through his sister, Plum Sykes, in the mid-Nineties. Their proposal is hitting publishers’ desks this week. Sykes said the book will draw on Detmar’s numerous diaries during the couple’s two decades together, and will also delve into Isabella’s colorful ancestry, unhappy childhood and experiences in America. Sykes said the challenge will be to “broaden the story and make it clear the book is not just for fashion people,” he said. “It’s really a love story: Romeo and Juliet meets Gormenghast in a Philip Treacy hat,” he said, referring to the British Gothic fantasy books from the Fifties.

So far, the rival authors are taking a gracious line toward each other. “There’s definitely room for two books,” said Crowe. “Mine will be a more detached, academic biography.” Sykes says his and Detmar’s book will be “the definitive biography of a British fashion icon,” but concedes an “outsider” is capable of telling Isabella’s story, too. “The fact that two books are being written just shows Isabella’s story is an amazing one,” he said. — Samantha Conti and Miles Socha (WWD.com)

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

From Publishers Weekly: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories -- The stories in this outstanding debut collection explore the troubled relationships of men down on their luck, in failed marriages, estranged from family, caught in imbroglios between sons and their fathers and stepfathers, and even, in Wild America, the subtle and ferocious competition between teenage girls. Bob Monroe, the protagonist of The Brown Coast, loses his job, his inheritance and his wife after the death of his father. The narrator of Down Through the Valley, meanwhile, is persuaded to drive his ex-wife's boyfriend home from an ashram after he injures himself. In Leopard, the threat of a missing pet leopard lurking in the woods hints at a troubled 11-year-old's rage toward his stepfather. The narrator of Down Through the Valley has a savage freak-out that terrifies him. The strange and magnificent title story, in which Vikings set off again toward an oft-raided island, beautifully ties the collection together in its heartbreaking final paragraph. Tower's uncommon mastery of tone and wide-ranging sympathy creates a fine tension between wry humor and the primal rage that seethes just below the surface of each of his characters.

Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak

Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: by Writers Famous and Obscure - Love wounds the heart and soul . . . From the editors of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning comes another collection of terse true tales—this time simple sagas exploring the complexities of the human heart. Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak contains hundreds of personal stories about the pinnacles and pitfalls of romance. Brilliant in their brevity, these insightful slivers of passion, pain, and connection capture every shade of love and loss—six words at a time.

L.A. Candy

From People online:

The star of The Hills reveals on her MySpace blog that her new book, L.A. Candy which is "loosely inspired" by her own experience – follows the story of 19-year-old girl named Jane Roberts "who moves to L.A. and unexpectedly becomes the star of a reality television show." In the book Jane's best friend is named Scarlett.

The novel, the first in a three-book series being published for young adults by HarperCollins, will be released June 16.

"Some of the characters may symbolize people in my life," writes Conrad, who has gone through a multitude of drama on the MTV series, "but it is in no way calling anyone out."

Adds the star, "I've always loved books that I could lose myself in, ones that would transport me to another place, but had characters I could relate to. So, I'm so excited to have this opportunity to write books like that for other readers."

The Agency

The Agency -- Tess Drake is in trouble - she just doesn't know it yet. As an agent in a multinational media agency, Tess deals with some of the worlds biggest egos. And that's just those inside her firm. After the mysterious death of a senior partner, Tess's sworn enemy, Cosima Tate, has taken over the firm and would do anything to thwart Tess's career. Tess wants to start her own agency and take her biggest client with her, but can she jump ship and risk losing her reputation? Are her balls made of steel, or are they about to be crushed under Cosima's stilettoed heel?

Spoiled

I am so excited! I just read in Vogue that Caitlin Macy has FINALLY written another book! Her first book, The Fundamentals of Play is one of my favorites in recent years. Here is a blurb from Amazon:

Caitlin Macy’s debut novel The Fundamentals of Play was heralded as a Gatsbyesque examination of love and class in Manhattan. Now, in her sophisticated and provocative story collection Spoiled, Macy turns her unsparing eye on affluent and educated women who nevertheless struggle to keep their footing in their relationships and life.

In “Annabel’s Mother,” a young woman does a good deed for her nanny, only to have it go horribly wrong. “Bait and Switch” chronicles a lifelong rivalry between two sisters. A self-made woman struggles to gain the upper hand with her comically self-assured cleaning woman in “The Red Coat.” And in “Taroudant,” a newly married woman desperate for authentic experience makes a rash decision to leave the grounds of her Moroccan luxury hotel.

Macy’s voice is as straightforward as it is original in these stories, and her characters deftly nuanced. Full of surprising, sometimes shocking insights and simmering with outrage, compassion, and humor, Spoiled is a remarkable collection from a boldly talented writer.

Update: The NY Times Style Section ran a feature article about Caitlin Macy and her new book. You can find "Between a Soft and a Cushy Place" here.

Fool’s Paradise

Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach -- As two of South Beach's famous ladies (the Hotel Fountainbleu and Madonna, respectively) reinvent themselves yet again, this sour-sweet city history exposes scandal, intrigue, sex and drugs in the sun-drenched social spot. Gaines (Philistines at the Hedgerow) doesn't let a garish outfit or randy dialogue escape: "they were an odd sight, Barbara Capitman in her frowsy clothes, Leonard Horowitz in his hand-me-downs; Barbara buttonholing people on the street to tell them about Art Deco preservations, Leonard spouting sexual come-ons to passing gay men like he had Tourette's syndrome." The author rounds up the usual suspects: the hotelier, the mobster, the model, the other model, the night club owner, Frank Sinatra (in his greatest real-life hoodlum roles), and a chorus line of backstabbers, petty criminals and reformed drug addicts, all attracted by the wealth and possibility of South Beach. Gaines is more gossipy tour guide than investigative journalist, and readers will rightly suspect that most of the characters would revel in his nastier descriptions. Nevertheless, this book is perfect reading for a lazy afternoon in the double-decker cabana.

Damien Hirst Superstition

The signed edition is $500 @ Barneys NY or buy the unsigned version of Superstition on
Amazon.com!

Freakin' Fabulous

Freakin' Fabulous: How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better than Everyone Else

Clinton Kelly won't just revamp your wardrobe -- he'll revamp your life!

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe examines the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for luxury goods by telling the behind-the-scenes tale of one of the most talked-about brands of our age. Jimmy Choo was a London shoemaker with a few famous clients when Tamara Yeardye, a London society girl, convinced him to launch a factory-produced luxury shoe line. Twelve years later, Jimmy Choo is a household name, and Tamara still presides over what is now one of the most successful luxury brands in the world, worth some $350 million. But along the way she was tested at every turn. The story of how the Jimmy Choo brand got to where it is today is one of love, hate, sex, fashion, finance, drugs, celebrity, power, intrigue, and ambition. And every word of it is true. Compelling to followers of both fashion and business, The Towering World of Jimmy Choo takes readers into a complex and rarified world. More here.