Book picks similar to
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Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life
Lisa Chaney - 2011
Revolutionizing women's dress, Gabrielle "Coco'' Chanel was the twentieth century's most influential designer. Her extraordinary and unconventional journey-from abject poverty to a new kind of glamour- helped forge the idea of modern woman.Unearthing an astonishing life, this remarkable biography shows how, more than any previous designer, Chanel became synonymous with a rebellious and progressive style. Her numerous liaisons, whose poignant and tragic details have eluded all previous biographers, were the very stuff of legend. Witty and mesmerizing, she became muse, patron, or mistress to the century's most celebrated artists, including Picasso, Dalí, and Stravinsky.Drawing on newly discovered love letters and other records, Chaney's controversial book reveals the truth about Chanel's drug habit and lesbian affairs. And the question about Chanel's German lover during World War II (was he a spy for the Nazis?) is definitively answered.While uniquely highlighting the designer's far-reaching influence on the modern arts, Chaney's fascinating biography paints a deeper and darker picture of Coco Chanel than any so far. Movingly, it explores the origins, the creative power, and the secret suffering of this exceptional and often misread woman.
Happy Home: Everyday Magic for a Colorful Life
Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau - 2013
Happy Home brims with useful ideas for transforming a ho-hum home with relaxed contemporary style featuring bright colors, cheerful patterns, and varying textures and scale inspired by designer Charlotte Hedeman Gueniau and her home furnishings company Rice, which are well-known among design fans for innovative home furnishings and houseware collections featuring ethically sourced and produced products. The book shows how the basics of everyday life can be enlivened by bringing color and a sense of fun to daily living, whether by using brightly colored accessories or by introducing fabrics with patterns, textures, and hints of humor throughout the home. Included are practical suggestions that add informal charm to any room, as well as do-it-yourself projects ranging from brightly colored throws and cushions, storage ideas to hide clutter, hand-painted furniture, and decorative motifs for walls and other surfaces.
Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic
Jenny McCarthy - 2012
While most young girls in Jenny's neighborhood were playing with Cabbage Patch dolls for fun, Jenny was playing with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph dolls. She had every intention of growing up and becoming a nun, but a few hilarious speed bumps and blinking red lights along the way changed her mind. Jenny never did accept Sister Mary's reasoning that she could avoid purgatory if she just bought a string necklace for $10. The fact that two of her aunts are simultaneously nuns and cops-yes, they carry guns and shoot people while wearing a habit-never made complete sense to her. And neither does her mother's insistence that Jenny bury certain religious statues in the front lawns of her houses before she sells them. But then again, Jenny does have four of them buried across Southern California.This book tells the story of what went wrong during Jenny's Catholic upbringing, or, as Jenny puts it now, what went right. Chapters include: "I Knew I Should Have Worn Underwear to Church", "Jesus' Baby Mama", "Can Someone Kill Our Dog, Please?", and "Oh No, My Mom is Going to Hell."BAD HABITS is a brutally honest, hilarious memoir that will delight the legions of Jenny McCarthy fans.
Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave
Joanna Gaines - 2018
This comprehensive guide will help you assess your priorities and your instincts, as well as your likes and dislikes, with practical steps for navigating and embracing your authentic design style.Room by room, Homebody gives you an in-depth look at how these styles are iterated as well as how to blend the genres you’re drawn to in order to create spaces that look and feel distinctly yours.In each chapter are practical takeaways to help problem solve potential pain points in your home. A fold out design guidebook at the back of the book offers a place for you to take notes and sketch out your own design plans as you make your way through the rooms.The insight shared in Homebody will instill in you the confidence to thoughtfully create spaces that you never want to leave.
Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books
Nina Freudenberger - 2019
Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections.Praise for Bibliostyle"Featuring enviable private libraries and packed floor-to-ceiling shelves, this beautiful volume makes a compelling case for books as d�cor."--New York"Freudenberger spotlights the splendid, enviable personal libraries of literary figures whose owners obviously care about their book collections and have actually read them, too."--The Boston Globe"This is a coffee table book that makes you think as well as admire and desire."--Sydney Herald"Offers a look into the fabulous homes of book lovers the world over, showcasing how their interior design is built around the tomes they love most."--CN"The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections."--Publishers Weekly "Nina Freudenberger teams with Sadie Stein of The New Yorker and photographer Shade Degges of Architectural Digest to showcase beautiful photographs of the private libraries of book lovers from all over the world."--BookRiot
Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry
Elizabeth Taylor - 2002
I'm here to take care of it and to love it, for we are only temporary custodians of beauty."--Elizabeth TaylorShe has mesmerized movie audiences since her debut in National Velvet at the age of twelve, dazzled both men and women with her luminous beauty and iconic presence, displayed shrewd business acumen by creating a line of fragrances with unparalleled success, and her AIDS activism has been a call to arms for people around the world. She is Hollywood's greatest living star and a living legendElizabeth Taylor.One of her greatest passions is jewelry, and over the years she has amassed one of the world's foremost collections. By the time she was in her thirties, Elizabeth Taylor already owned an outstanding set of Burmese rubies and diamonds from Cartier, a fantastic emerald and diamond suite from Bulgari, and the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond, a gift from Richard Burton. That ring was later eclipsed by a subsequent gift from Burton, when he bought a staggering 69.42-carat pear-shaped diamond. Newly named the Taylor-Burton Diamond, it catapulted Elizabeth Taylor into that rarefied pantheon of great jewelry collectors.In this revealing book, Elizabeth Taylor offers a personal guided tour of her collection. She takes us into her confidence, sharing personal anecdotes, witty asides, and intimate reminiscences about her life, her loves, and her collection. Whether talking about the famous La Peregrina pearl, which was briefly abducted by a household pet, or chatting about a childhood gift to her mother, Elizabeth Taylor shows herself to be the most seductive of storytellers: direct, irreverent, and charming.Complementing the stories are 125 stunning new photographs of her most remarkable pieces, specially commissioned for this book, and more than 150 rarely seen images (many from Elizabeth Taylor's personal collection) of the star wearing her jewelry over the course of almost sixty years. We see her as a young ingenue of fifteen wearing what would be the first of many charm bracelets, and again, equally dazzling, as a mature woman, wearing the famous Duchess of Windsor diamond brooch, which she purchased to benefit AIDS research.Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry marks the first time this beautiful jewelry will be seen together as a collection. Lavishly produced and illustrated, the book has an introduction by the world-renowned authority on jewelry, François Curiel, of Christie's. It is for those who are enchanted by this most incandescent and enduring star, for those who cherish and dream of jewelry, and most importantly, for those who believe in the true meaning of love. This book is a fabulous display of unbelievable glamour, assembled over a lifetime, by one of the most extraordinary women in the world.
The Art of Neil Gaiman
Hayley Campbell - 2014
This tells the full story of his amazing creative life. Never-before-seen manuscripts, notes, cartoons, drawings and personal photographs from Neil's own archive are complemented by artwork and sketches from all of his major works, and his own intimate recollections. Each project is examined from genesis to fruition, and positioned in the wider narrative of Gaiman's crative life, affording unparalleled access to the inner workings of the writers mind
Karlology
Karl Pilkington - 2008
Drawing on what little he learned during his days of education, Karl explores the world of knowledge through a school curriculum, with chapters devoted to biology, history, art, and English, among others, each topic approached with Karl's inimitable combination of innocent wonder and down-to-earth wisdom. Full color throughout, the book is illustrated with Karl's hand-drawn cartoons and comic strips and it features e-mail contributions from a host of celebrities and experts who Karl has quizzed to further his knowledge.
The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made
Greg Sestero - 2013
Described by one reviewer as “like getting stabbed in the head,” the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Now in its tenth anniversary year, The Room is an international phenomenon to rival The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Thousands of fans wait in line for hours to attend screenings complete with costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons.Readers need not have seen The Room to appreciate its costar Greg Sestero’s account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and interpersonal relationships to achieve the dream only he could love. While it does unravel mysteries for fans, The Disaster Artist is more than just an hilarious story about cinematic hubris: It is ultimately a surprisingly inspiring tour de force that reads like a page-turning novel, an open-hearted portrait of a supremely enigmatic man who will capture your heart.
In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs
Grace Bonney - 2016
In the Company of Women profiles over 100 of these influential and creative women from all ages, races, backgrounds, and industries. Chock-full of practical, inspirational advice for those looking to forge their own paths, these interviews detail the keys to success (for example, going with your gut; maintaining meaningful and lasting relationships), highlight the importance of everyday rituals (meditating; creating a daily to-do list), and dispense advice for the next generation of women entrepreneurs and makers (stay true to what you believe in; have patience). The book is rounded out with hundreds of lush, original photographs of the women in their work spaces.
Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose
Candace Cameron Bure - 2013
And it’s a question that women everywhere are asking themselves as we seek to balance all of our roles, responsibilities, and opportunities.So, how do we do it? Working since the age of 5, Candace has been in a balancing act for nearly her entire life. She is the first to tell you that there is no miracle formula for perfect execution in every area of your life, but there definitely are some lessons to be learned, lessons that come to life in Candace's story. Come along and dig into Candace’s story from her start in commercials, the balance-necessitating years on Full House, to adding on the roles of wife and mom while also returning to Hollywood. Insightful, funny, and poignant, Candace’s story will help you balance it all.
Fashion Climbing: A Memoir with Photographs
Bill Cunningham - 2018
Growing up in a lace-curtain Irish suburb of Boston, secretly trying on his sister's dresses and spending his evenings after school in the city's chicest boutiques, Bill dreamed of a life dedicated to fashion. But his desires were a source of shame for his family, and after dropping out of Harvard, he had to fight them tooth-and-nail to pursue his love.When he arrived in New York, he reveled in people-watching. He spent his nights at opera openings and gate-crashing extravagant balls, where he would take note of the styles, new and old, watching how the gowns moved, how the jewels hung, how the hair laid on each head. This was his education, and the birth of the democratic and exuberant taste that he came to be famous for as a photographer for The New York Times. After two style mavens—the women who eventually gave Jackie Kennedy her famous pink Chanel suit—took Bill under their wing, his creativity thrived and he made a name for himself as a designer. Taking on the alias William J.—because designing under his family's name would have been a disgrace to his parents—Bill became one of the era's most outlandish and celebrated hat designers, catering to movie stars, heiresses, and artists alike. Bill's mission was to bring happiness to the world by making women an inspiration to themselves and everyone who saw them. These were halcyon days when fashion was all he ate and drank. When he was broke and hungry he'd stroll past the store windows on Fifth Avenue and feed himself on beautiful things.Fashion Climbing is the story of a young man striving to be the person he was born to be: a true original. But although he was one of the city's most recognized and treasured figures, Bill was also one of its most guarded. Written with his infectious joy and one-of-a-kind voice, this memoir was polished, neatly typewritten, and safely stored away in his lifetime. He held off on sharing it—and himself—until his passing. Between these covers, is an education in style, an effervescent tale of a bohemian world as it once was, and a final gift to the readers of one of New York's great characters.
Becoming
Cindy Crawford - 2015
Cindy Crawford was the cornerstone of the golden age of the supermodel in the 1990s. She blazed a trail during that decade, seamlessly moving between the runway to unconventional outlets, such as cutting-edge MTV, Super Bowl commercials, and even Playboy magazine. On the eve of her fiftieth birthday, Crawford looks back, photo shoot by photo shoot, on a remarkable career and various life lessons she absorbed. She discusses her earliest modeling years and learning how to become less self-conscious in front of a camera; trusting her own instincts about creating positive messages about a healthy and strong body image that she knew would reach women of all ages; her feelings about becoming a wife and a mother; and her thoughts about turning fifty and what she would tell her younger self if she had the chance. The photographs span her entire career, beginning from the mid 1980s, and feature unpublished images from Crawford’s personal archive in addition to images by every top name in fashion photography, including Annie Leibovitz, Arthur Elgort, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Irving Penn, Patrick Demarchelier, and Richard Avedon, among others. A beautifully illustrated series of stories, Becoming is a smart and engaging book that sheds light into the life and work of an extraordinary woman.
Strong Looks Better Naked
Khloé Kardashian - 2015
This is an inspiring book about how to create strength and true beauty in every area of your life, inside and out. The book features inspired personal stories from Khloé and practical how-to advice about building a strong body, mind, heart, and soul in your own life.
My Ideal Bookshelf
Jane MountMiranda July - 2012
In MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. Contributors include Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Keller, Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Maira Kalman, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Miranda July, Alex Ross, Nancy Pearl, David Chang, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Dave Eggers, among many others. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first-person commentary from all the contributors, this is a perfect gift for avid readers, writers, and all who have known the influence of a great book.