Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad

Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad: What would you do if your eighty-year-old father dragged you into his hell-bent hunt for new love? Bob Morris, a seriously single son, tells you all about it in this warm, witty, and wacky chronicle of a year of dating dangerously.

A few months after the death of his wife, Joe Morris, an affable, eccentric, bridge-obsessed octogenarian, starts flapping about for a replacement. If he can get a new hip, he figures, why not a new wife? At first, his son Bob is appalled, but suspicion quickly turns to enthusiasm as he finds himself trolling the personals, screening prospects, and offering etiquette tips, chaperoning services, and post-date assessments to his needy father.

Bob hopes that Joe will find a well-heeled lady—or at least one who is very patient—to get him out of his hair. But soon they discover that finding a new mate will not be as easy as they think: one date is too morose, another too liberal; one's a three-timer, another just needs an escort until Mr. Right comes along. Dad persists and son assists. Am I pimping for my father? he begins to wonder.

Meanwhile, Bob suffers similar frustrations; trying to find love isn't easy in a big-city market that has little use for a middle-aged gay man with an attitude and a paunch. But with the encouragement of his father (his biggest fan and the world's "most democratic Republican") he prevails. In the end, this memoir becomes a twin love story and a soulful lesson about giving and receiving affection with an open heart.

With wicked humor and a dollop of compassion, Bob Morris gleefully explores the impact of senior parents on their boomer kids and the perils of dating at any age.

About the Author: Bob Morris is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Sunday Styles section, where his "Age of Dissonance" column ran for eight years. He's been a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and Travel + Leisure, among other publications. He is also a playwright and the author of two picture books, one for children and the other for reading-averse adults. He grew up on Long Island and now lives (miraculously) partnered in New York City.

The End of Baseball

The End of Baseball: A Novel - a recent review from the NY Post: In Schilling's novel, set in the 1944 season, baseball maverick Bill Veeck buys the Philadelphia Athletics and, determined to field the best team, recruits ballplayers from the Negro League for his roster (he reportedly considered doing this in real life). Of course, the establishment - the cranky commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis and even J. Edgar Hoover - is aghast. But readers are sure to cheer both Veeck and players such as Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige in this alternate take on baseball history.

The Art of Keeping Secrets

The Art of Keeping Secrets (not to be confused with The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets which I have read and profiled previously). Here's the Amazon.com description: Annabelle has finally made peace with the loss of her beloved husband. Until she finds out he wasn’t alone when he died…

Since a plane crash killed her husband two years ago, Annabelle Murphy has found solace in raising her two children. Just when she thinks the grief is behind her, she receives the news that the wreckage of the small plane has been discovered—and that her husband did not die alone. He was with another woman. Suddenly, Annabelle is forced to question everything she once held true.

Sophie Parker knows the woman who was on that plane. A dolphin researcher who has lived a quiet life, Sophie has never let anyone get too close. But when Annabelle shows up on Sophie’s doorstep full of painful questions, both women must confront their intertwining pasts—and find the courage to face the truth.

Such a Pretty Fat: Book Review

I've been meaning to post this since I finished the book two weeks ago but keep getting sidetracked...If you don't know all about Jen already I highly reccomend you get up to speed first by reading Bitter is the New Black and Bright Lights, Big Ass. Both laugh out loud funny and very entertaining (also great beach books because they are fast reads). Jen writes like she talks and you feel like you know her. People Magazine gave her 3 and a half stars a couple of issues ago. I am wondering why she didn't use the photo that appears in the magazine instead of the one on the inside of the bookcover. She looks way better now. Anyway, if you've ever struggled with being overweight this is an uplifting book - you will be nodding your heading in agreement over Jen's encounters with Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, exercising and personal trainers kicking your butt!

Sex and the City Movie: The Book

If the movie wasn't enough here's the Sex and the City movie book!

From the publisher: From the team who brought you Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell comes this must-have companion to the movie millions have been waiting for. This sleek hardcover volume gives reader exclusive entrée into the world of Sex and the City: The Movie.

In addition to a storybook-style telling of the film, the book includes mouth-watering bonus features not available anywhere else: behind-the-scenes stories from Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, star and producer Sarah Jessica Parker, writer and director Michael Patrick King, as well as producers and other key cast and crew members; a guide to the movie's multi-million—dollar fashion closet, including insight from costume designer Patricia Field; and an insider's tour of the movie's many locations, some of which have never before appeared on film.

All of this behind-the-scenes information is accompanied by more than three hundred stunning, luscious, full-color images. This beautiful keepsake is sure to bring some big-screen glitz and glamour to every reader's bookshelf.

Reminder! Chasing Harry Winston out this Tuesday!

Coldplay: Viva La Vida

Coldplay was inspired by a painting by Frida Kahlo, the 20th century Mexican artist. The literal translation of the painting's title is "Long Live Life." The album's artwork features the painting Liberty Leading the People (La Liberté guidant le peuple) by French painter Eugène Delacroix, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830.

Here is the Coldplay commercial for iTunes:

Cover image: Coldplay.com

The Today Show Summer Reads

Hit the stack! Top 10 summer reads

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein
This is the Starbucks book pick of the summer, so you’ll see it by the counter whenever you stop to get your vente latte. Imagine if your dog wrote a tell-all about you — that gives you an idea of what kind of book this is. It’s a novel about a family told from the pooch’s perspective. The concept may sound cutesy, but it is actually a very gripping and well-written story. And it’s getting some heady praise from big-deal writers like my favorite, Wally Lamb.

"Skeletons at the Feast" by Chris Bohjalian
Bohjalian is another favorite author of mine. This is the perfect novel for a book club because there’s so much to discuss. The story is set in World War II and follows a group of German refugees as they flee their homeland. Normally, I’m not a big fan of historical fiction, but this book sucked me right in. It opens with a young girl who’s trying to get across a frozen river with her family, but enemy soldiers are bombing the ice to keep people from crossing. It’s vivid and heart-wrenching. One interesting sidenote: The author was inspired to write this book when someone gave him an unpublished diary of a Prussian woman who fled west in 1945.

"The Story of A Marriage" by Andrew Sean Greer
I love the first sentence of this novel: “We think we know the ones we love.” With an introduction like that you just know there’s some deep dark secrets in store. And that’s exactly what you get. It’s about a 1950s housewife who opens her door one day to find a stranger standing there. This stranger tells her some shocking things about her husband.

"Chasing Harry Winston" by Lauren Weisberger
Okay, now for the lighter reads. I don’t want to call these next couple of books trashy, but we’ll say they’re on the “fluffy” side. And there’s nothing wrong with that — especially in the summer. This one is by the author of "The Devil Wears Prada." It’s the story of three best friends — two of them make a pact to dramatically change their entire lives within the course of a year.

"Love the One You're With" by Emily Giffin
Another fun book that raises the question: How do you know if you’ve found “The One?” It’s about a woman who is happily married — or so she thinks — until she runs into an ex she never quite go over. He’s a real bad boy so the reader doesn’t want her to be tempted, but we can also understand why she is.

"Black Out" by Lisa Unger
I was a big fan of the author’s debut novel, "Beautiful Lies.” This time, she’s back with a novel about a woman leading a pretty comfy life in a Florida suburb until some dark memories from her past begin to surface. As she sets out to uncover the truth behind these memories, her world turns upside down. The book is full of twists and turns. A great read for anyone craving some suspense.

"Bringing Home the Birkin" by Michael Tonelo
You ladies must know what a Birkin bag is, but I had no idea until I read this book. They’re Hermes bags that are worth tens of thousands of dollars. Socialites and celebrities would pretty much kill for them. This is true story by a guy who went from having not much of a job to being one of the busiest Internet resellers of the coveted Birkin bags in the world. It’s a witty and wild ride.

"Wolf at the Table" by Augusten Burroughs
The author is best-known for his runaway bestseller “Running With Scissors.” This latest memoir is a much more serious look at his relationship with his father. It opens with the memory of his dad chasing him through the woods as a child. Once you start turning the pages, it’s hard to stop.

"Summer of Naked Swim Parties" by Jessica Anya Blau
This wins the prize for the best title of the list. It’s by a first-time author. You know, with the show Swingtown coming out this summer there’s been lots of talk about the ’70s and people having parents who did some wild things back in the day. Again, the title says it all!

"Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan
If you missed this one in hardcover, grab it in paperback. It’s a novel based on the true story of the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and a woman named Mamah Cheney; both of them left their family to be together, creating a Chicago scandal that eventually ended in violence.

via MSNBC

Fashion History: Dressed to Kill

Dressed to Kill: What to Wear When Fashion Makes History- From Jackie O.'s pink suit to Mao's signature blue jacket with tidy collar, fashion has been a catalyst, a lightning rod, even a dominant player at many of the central events in history. While critics and moralists through the ages have raged against fashion's essential frivolity, many cultural and political leaders have intuitively understood its centrality to human concerns. Dressed to Kill puts style in its rightful place at the center of the historical stage {description from Amazon.com}

Bringing Home the Birkin: NY Times Book Review

The end of the world just inched a little nearer: an eBay seller has written a memoir. About handbags.

Not just any handbag. For those not familiar with the Birkin bag — made by Hermès, the French luxury leather goods company, for the singer Jane Birkin in the early ’80s, after its chief executive saw the chanteuse struggling with her vagabond-verging-on-cat-lady straw purse on a plane — it doesn’t matter, because you can’t get one anyway. Any other Jane who walks in off the street and asks for a Birkin is politely told there is a two-to-three-year waiting list. Oh, and the entry-level leather model costs about $7,500, with a crocodile-and-diamond version topping out at $150,000.

These days, Americans versed in pop culture — “Sex and the City,” Oprah being turned away at the Paris Hermès store — know about Birkins. And for a woman of a certain class anywhere in the world, carrying one is the quickest way to telegraph to other women, “I win.” And so some of them will do or pay just about anything to get one.

At the start of “Bringing Home the Birkin,” the author, Michael Tonello, is a party boy in Provincetown, Mass., who doesn’t know a Birkin from Burkina Faso. Weary of traveling the world as a hair and makeup artist for commercials, he decides to move to Barcelona after working on an I.B.M. shoot in the city. A job magically materializes, then vanishes, and Tonello is stuck in Spain with a five-year lease, no work visa and expensive custom closets he had built to fit his designer clothes. He was up a particular creek “without a paleta,” he writes. But his father reminds him of his American entrepreneurial pluck, recalling how, as a teenager, Michael made money for his French class trip by selling sandwiches at their country club out of a golf cart. Lightning soon strikes, as I suppose it sometimes does, in the form of cashmere: rearranging his sweaters for the “800th time,” he realizes it’s not actually that cold in Spain. He lists a Ralph Lauren scarf on eBay, bought at an outlet for $99, which sells for $430. Paleta found.

Suddenly, everything in his apartment has eBay appeal. Even his “friends,” his first-edition Lillian Hellman and Truman Capote books, are put on the virtual block. Tonello breezes through a paragraph of advice for potential sellers, then barrels toward his fateful sale, a silk Hermès scarf that draws aggressive bidding, as well as e-mail messages from desperate collectors imploring him to help them complete their scarf “wish lists.” “I intimated that this was ‘only the tip of the iceberg,’” he writes in his exhaustingly chatty, girlfriend-à-girlfriend tone. (Tonello has never met a cliché he didn’t love, and is addicted to alliteration. Sample: “I didn’t mind the calculus of currency conversion or the etymology of exotic entrees.”) Click here to read the entire review.

American Eve Companion Video

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It Girl" and the Crime of the Century

American Eve: The scandalous story of America’s first supermodel, sex goddess, and modern celebrity, Evelyn Nesbit, the temptress at the center of Stanford White’s famous murder, whose iconic life story reflected all the paradoxes of America’s Gilded Age. Known to millions before her sixteenth birthday in 1900, Evelyn Nesbit was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Women wanted to be her. Men just wanted her. When her life of fantasy became all too real, and her jealous millionaire husband, Harry K. Thaw, killed her lover—celebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York City—she found herself at the center of the “Crime of the Century” and the popular courtroom drama that followed—a scandal that signaled the beginning of a national obsession with youth, beauty, celebrity, and sex. The story of Evelyn Nesbit is one of glamour, money, romance, sex, madness, and murder, and Paula Uruburu weaves all of these elements into an elegant narrativethat reads like the best fiction — only it’s all true. American Eve goes far beyond just literary biography; it paints a picture of America as it crossed from the Victorian era into the modern, foreshadowing so much of our contemporary culture today. {description from Amazon.com}

Update: Dr. Paula Uruburu (the author of American Eve) stopped by and commented - she has a website dedicated to American Eve with lots of great info which can be found here.

The House on Fortune Street

The House on Fortune Street: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly:
The absorbing latest from Livesey opens multiple perspectives on the life of Dara MacLeod, a young London therapist, partly by paying subtle homage to literary figures and works. The first of four sections follows Keats scholar Sean Wyman: his girlfriend, Abigail, is Dara's best friend, and the couple lives upstairs from Dara in the titular London house. While Dara tries to coax her boyfriend Edward to move out of the house he shares with his ex-girlfriend and daughter, Sean receives a mysterious letter implying that Abigail is having an affair, and both relationships start to fall apart. The second section, set during Dara's childhood, is narrated by Dara's father, who has a strange fascination with Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and shares Dodgson's creepy interest in young girls. Dara's meeting with Edward dominates part three, which mirrors the plot of Jane Eyre, and the final part, reminiscent of Great Expectations, is told mainly from Abigail's college-era point of view. The pieces cross-reference and fit together seamlessly, with Dara's fate being revealed by the end of part one and explained in the denouement. Livesey's use of the classics enriches the narrative, giving Dara a larger-than-life resonance.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

David Sedaris' latest When You Are Engulfed in Flames will be released on June 3rd and I can't wait. Below is from a recent interview in W Magazine:

After five autobiographical essay collections that have sold more than four million copies in 25 languages, a lot of people must think they know David Sedaris pretty well. Certainly his fans are fully versed in the eccentricities of the writer’s sizable Greek-American family and his down-and-out young adulthood. After stints in multiple colleges, he scraped by picking apples, painting houses and playing an elf at Macy’s Santaland, all the while consuming drugs, alcohol and cigarettes in bulk. Happily, things turned around in the early Nineties, when he met his perfect boyfriend, Hugh Hamrick, and, shortly thereafter, was asked to read his essay about the aforementioned elf gig on NPR, which led to overnight fame and a book deal. Sedaris and Hamrick, a decorative painter, soon traded their rat-friendly tenement in New York’s SoHo for a lovely Paris flat. Today the couple divide their time between a Left Bank apartment, a house in a rustic part of Normandy and a town house in London’s Kensington.

To read the entire article click W Magazine.

Stuff White People Like: The Book

If you love the website, you'll love the book: Stuff White People Like: A Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions-Available July 1st.

The Fashion Questionaire

Designers who answered the Fashion Questionnaire: Thom Browne, Ennio Capasa, Pierre Cardin, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Roberto Cavalli, Alber Elbaz, Diane von Furstenberg, John Galliano, Carolina Herrera, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Karl Lagerfeld, Catherine Malandrino, Nicole Miller, Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Rucci, Sonia Rykiel, Olivier Theyskens, Isabel Toledo, and Valentino. I couldn't find this on Amazon but I believe it's available through Assouline.com.

Play Ball!

I heard the authors of It Takes More Than Balls: The Savvy Girls' Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball on my way home from work the day before yesterday via Cosmo Radio (Cocktails with Patrick) and thought I would reccomend it to anyone that needs a little help. Personally, I don't need much help since I was actually stood up for a date (Yankees game) because I knew a little too much about baseball, but I think it's a great idea! I also loved their idea for a baseball lover's dating website, I've been looking for a Philadelphia Phillies fan forever!

The Girls were featured on the front page of MLB.com yesterday - click here to read the article. Click here for their Official MLB blog and lastly check out the Savvy Girls website.

Rumors

Rumors: A Luxe Novel - I am really psyched for the sequel to The Luxe...here's the description: After bidding good-bye to New York's brightest star, Elizabeth Holland, rumors continue to fly about her untimely demise.

All eyes are on those closest to the dearly departed: her mischievous sister, Diana, now the family's only hope for redemption; New York's most notorious cad, Henry Schoon-maker, the flame Elizabeth never extinguished; the seductive Penelope Hayes, poised to claim all that her best friend left behind—including Henry; even Elizabeth's scheming former maid, Lina Broud, who discovers that while money matters and breeding counts, gossip is the new currency.

As old friends become rivals, Manhattan's most dazzling socialites find their futures threatened by whispers from the past. In this delicious sequel to The Luxe, nothing is more dangerous than a scandal . . . or more precious than a secret.

Lovehampton

LoveHampton

From Publishers Weekly:
In Rifkin's dazzling debut, Manhattanite media pro Tori Miller shares a posh Hamptons summerhouse with five upwardly mobile 30-somethings. Wanting out of the depressing slide her life takes after being dumped by her first love and losing her dream job, Tori starts MillerWorks, her own TV production company. Still, Tori's depressed, bringing about an intervention staged by her loyal employees, Jerry and Jimmy, her best friend Alice and the Transformation Trio—three make-over experts who use Tori as the pilot subject for their new reality TV show. Tori flirts with a glamming lifestyle, and her fling with George, a rich playboy with a publicist, while she's also secretly canoodling with a housemate, banker Andrew Kane, is a recipe for disaster. Tori must think fast on her borrowed Manolos, especially when Cassie Dearborn, her new friend and housemate, needs help with her own disastrous Hampton hijinxs. Hotter than a sand dune in August, cooler than a mojito in South Beach (or Southhampton), this book will appeal to Sex and the City fans and summer beach readers alike.

More on Bringing Home the Birkin

{ The author Michael Tonello & Peggy Siegal}

The St. Regis Birkin Brigade

How does one avoid the notorious Birkin waitlist? With their requisite status bags in tow, a slew of socials gathered Monday afternoon at the St. Regis to find out just that. Hosts Jill Fairchild and Melissa Biggs Bradley invited their friends in the Astor Court to celebrate Michael Tonello's new book Bringing Home The Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of The World's Most Coveted Handbag, which hit shelves April 22. It is certainly a theme that the crowd, which included Jennifer Creel, Gillian Miniter, and Susan Gutfreund, could relate to. "I was offered Ferraris for the day and New York City penthouse apartments for the month," said Tonello of the outrageous gifts he was given for his Birkin finding services. "I accumulated over 100 stamps on my passport and spent $1.6 million at Hermès in a three month period."

After explaining the origins of the iconic bag, his global Birkin buying tour, and the ways in which one can attempt to "cut the line," Tonello took questions. "What are your thoughts on the Ralph Lauren Ricky bag that Whitney [Fairchild] is carrying?" Peggy Siegal asked. "Don't you think it's awfully similar to the Birkin?" Fairchild took the surprise outburst in stride. "Remember, I work for Ralph Lauren," she retorted. Marina Rust Connor was quick to come to her defense. "The hardware is completely different," she observed.

From FWD

The Trench Book

The Trench Book

The English American

The English American: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly:
Based on her semi-autobiographical one-woman show of the same title, Larkin's debut novel takes a comedic but heartfelt look at issues of identity, heredity and self-acceptance. Pippa Dunn—British, 28 and living with her sister in West London—loves her adoptive parents dearly, but has rarely felt at home with the primness and very British emotional restraint with which she was raised, as her funny, anxious narration demonstrates. When Pippa discovers that her birth mother, Billie, is an American (from Georgia, no less) she feels compelled to travel to the U.S. to meet the the sweet, understanding, empathetic ethereal mother she's always imagined. Not surprisingly, both Billie and Pippa's birth father, Walt, fail to live up to her imagined ideals. Although Larkin's premise leads to worthy reflections in Pippa's winning voice, awkward attempts to marry the birth-mother search to a conventional romantic comedy plot are less successful. Through a midbook e-mail exchange, we learn that Pippa met her soul mate, Nick (now a banker in Singapore), in a London park seven years before, but wasn't ready to feel love. Nick the banker-cum-painter is far too tortured and emotive to be believable, and the ensuing romantic revelations are predictable. Pippa, however, is a complex, compelling character—truly an amalgam of her heredity and her environment—and readers will root for her as she uncovers her roots and finds herself.

Michael Tonello's Event Schedule for Bringing Home the Birkin

Friday, April 25
07:00 AM - 09:00 AM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
CBS-TV/Early Show


Wednesday, April 30
06:00 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
Fashion Institute of Technology
28th St @ 7th Ave FIT/Reeves Great Hall New York, NY 10001


Friday, May 02
08:00 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
BOOKS & BOOKS
265 Aragon AVE Coral Gables, FL 33134


Saturday, May 03
04:00 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
BOOKS & BOOKS/at Bal Harbour
9700 Collins AVE Bal Harbour, FL 33154


Sunday, May 04
02:00 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
BORDERS BOOKS & MUSIC
3066 NW Federal Hwy Jensen Beach, FL 34957


Monday, May 05
06:00 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
BORDERS, BACK BAY
511 Boylston ST Boston, MA 02116


Wednesday, May 07
05:30 PM - 07:30 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
THE CORNER GENERAL STORE
154 Middle Street Portland, ME 04101


Saturday, May 10
01:30 PM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
Mellenia Mall/Atria Area, Center of Mall
Walden Books 4200 Conroy Road SPC 203 Orlando, FL 32839


Friday, June 06
11:00 AM
Michael Tonello will be promoting Bringing Home the Birkin
Island Outfitters presents/Michael Tonello
Island Outfitters 473 Thames Street Newport, RI 02840

Bringing Home the Birkin

Just wanted to remind anyone who's interested that Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag is now available! A must read for fashionistas and Hermes lovers. See my previous review here.

Russian Tycoon to Launch Magazine for Snobs

Saw this on Luxist...funny because the author of the entry is Jared Paul Stern (formerly of the NY Post). The picture on the blog is from the Smirnoff's Tea Partay video.

Russian precious metals mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, ranked as the 24th richest man in the world with a $22 billion fortune, is set to launch a magazine called Snob for his fellow plutocrats. Prokhorov plans to invest $150 million in the venture, which will eventually include a website and TV station as well, Reuters reports. Andrei Shmarov, who's helming the project, says the magazine will be for "people who are successful and those who want to be successful."

Shmarov is at pains to point out that in Russia, "snob" isn't a pejorative term. "Snob to us means a person who is a 'self-made man', a person who has gained a right to snobbishness," he explains. "It's not pleasant to boast about your wealth when you have inherited it but when you have made it yourself, well it is still not very nice, but it is justified." At least in a country where a measly billion dollars won't even land you a spot on the rich list. Check out the other magazines for snobs here.

For the record, I only receive Quest. It was free when I lived in NYC but when I moved I subscribed. However, my subscription ran out awhile ago but I keep getting it.

Wharton's House Wins a Reprieve

In case you've been following the story (from the NYTimes):

The Mount, Edith Wharton’s house in Lenox, Mass., which has been in financial trouble for months, has been given another reprieve. In February a local bank that had been lending money to the Edith Wharton Restoration, the organization that owns and maintains the house, to cover operating expenses, threatened to begin foreclosure unless the Mount raised $3 million by March 24. The deadline was later extended to April 24, and Hannah Burns, one of the trustees, said on Wednesday that it had been pushed back yet another month, to May 24, which means that the house will now be able to open for visitors as scheduled on May 9. So far more than $800,000 of the needed sum has been raised.

Girls in Trucks

Girls in Trucks: Sarah Walters is a less-than-perfect debutante. She tries hard to follow the time-honored customs of the Charleston Camellia Society, as her mother and grandmother did, standing up straight in Cotillion class and attending lectures about all the things that Camellias don't do (like ride with boys in pickup trucks).

But Sarah can't quite ignore the barbarism just beneath all that propriety, and as soon as she can she leaves South Carolina for a life in New York City. Th ere, she and her fellow displaced Southern friends try to make sense of city sophistication, to understand how much of their training applies to real life and how much to the strange and rarefied world they've left behind.

When life's complications become overwhelming, Sarah returns home to confront with matured eyes the motto "Once a Camellia, always a Camellia"—and to see how much fuller life can be, for good and for ill, among those who know you best.

{Book Description from author's publisher.}

If you want to know what I've read...

...or am reading make sure to click on My Amazon Store on the right ----->. Feel free to ask me what I've read and if I loved it or hated it. I often forget to come back and review them!

The Red Leather Diary

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life through the Pages of a Lost Journal

Playing with the Grown-ups

Playing With the Grown-ups: A Novel

Eccentric Glamour Book Signing

{Click to enlarge}

Chasing Harry Winston

Pre-order now! Chasing Harry Winston: A Novel: The bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing returns with the story of three best friends who vow to change their entire lives...and change them fast.

Emmy is newly single, and not by choice. She was this close to the ring and the baby she's wanted her whole life when her boyfriend left her for his twenty-three-year-old personal trainer -- whose fees are paid by Emmy. With her plans for the perfect white wedding in the trash, Emmy is now ordering takeout for one. Her friends insist an around-the-world sex-fueled adventure will solve all her problems -- could they be right?

Leigh, a young star in the publishing business, is within striking distance of landing her dream job as senior editor and marrying her dream guy. And to top it all off, she has just purchased her dream apartment. Only when Leigh begins to edit the enfant terrible of the literary world, the brilliant and brooding Jesse Chapman, does she start to notice some cracks in her perfect life...

Adriana is the drop-dead-gorgeous daughter of a famous supermodel. She possesses the kind of feminine wiles made only in Brazil, and she never hesitates to use them. But she's about to turn thirty and -- as her mother keeps reminding her -- she won't have her pick of the men forever. Everyone knows beauty is ephemeral and there's always someone younger and prettier right around the corner. Suddenly she's wondering...does Mother know best?

These three very different girls have been best friends for a decade in the greatest city on earth. As they near thirty, they're looking toward their future...but despite all they've earned -- first-class travel, career promotions, invites to all the right parties, and luxuries small and large -- they're not quite sure they like what they see...

One Saturday night at the Waverly Inn, Adriana and Emmy make a pact: within a single year, each will drastically change her life. Leigh watches from the sidelines, not making any promises, but she'll soon discover she has the most to lose. Their friendship is forever, but everything else is on the table. Three best friends. Two resolutions. One year to pull it off.

Three Girls and Their Brother

Three Girls and Their Brother: A Novel: Here's a synopsis from Publisher's Weekly: Rebeck has won an Edgar and a Peabody for her TV work and numerous awards for her plays. Her hilarious first novel begins when the New Yorker profiles the three beautiful granddaughters and grandson of a famed late literary critic, Leo Heller. As a perennially aspiring model, Daria, 18, is ecstatic. Her younger sister, Polly, 17, is thrilled, too, but 14-year-old Amelia could care less. Philip, 15, who is the smartest of the group, is the first of the four to assume the first-person narrative; he's wary of all the attention, but the siblings' former beauty queen mom can't wait to take advantage of the publicity and push her daughters into show biz, even if it means sacrificing their schooling. Rebeck shines when Amelia gets cast in a ridiculous off-Broadway play: her insider's look at the theater world is spot on and uproarious, particularly her contrast of poor starving actors with rich starving models and of theater types with Hollywood types. The siblings' voices are not consistently strong, and an over-the-top revenge plot drains some power from the plot, but the crackling satire and scene-stealing secondaries carry the book.

Coterie Bookstore on Amazon.com

I have compiled most of the books I have posted and added a few more to the mix. It's categorized and a little easier to find what you're looking for - so visit my store!

Autobiography of a Wardrobe

Autobiography of a Wardrobe:

The wholly original story of a woman's life told from her wardrobe's point of view, in the wardrobe's own savvy, vibrant voice--a feat of the imagination as emotionally subtle and stirring as it is dazzlingly particular.

We first meet B., the wardrobe's owner, as a child in the buttoned-up Midwest of the 1950s, when "a vision of a saddle shoe" comes into her head and she discovers the urgency of all clothing dreams. We follow B. through her awkward, pudgy stage ("Here I must write about the stomach"); the indignity of camp shorts; her "adult figure arriv[ing] suddenly in 1963." The 1960s bring even bigger changes when B. goes off to Harvard, discards her girdle, and discovers... Marimekko! Miniskirts! Bell-bottoms!

Elizabeth Kendall's native intelligence and gift for storytelling entrance the reader, as the wardrobe charts the most important events in B.'s life and the outfits she assembles for each. We watch as B. copes with the untimely death of her mother; makes a go of magazine work--and glamour--in New York; and, after the inevitable false starts and wrong moves (including, of course, in her choice of clothing), finally comes into her own.

Part memoir, part fashion and cultural history of the last five decades, Autobiography of a Wardrobe is an exploration of the clothes each generation has embraced, the smallest details in which we are able to seek comfort and meaning, and the places and things--sometimes odd or unexpected--in which we store our memories.