Style Notes


Book Description

MAGGIE ALDERSON, novelist, philosopher of fashion and arbiter of style, brings us a new collection of her much-loved Style Notes column. Find out why men hate shopping and why women love wearing clothes men hate. Share the frustration of the search for the perfect Walkable Heeled Shoe and consider whether a size 'large' item of clothing is acceptable as a gift. Learn why it's good if your child is too embarrassed to be seen with you, and how to harness your life force through the power of yoga – and liberally applied make-up. Discover some key terms for the fashion addicted – Show Crow, Bag Hag and Fleabag – and work out where you fit on the spectrum. Warm, witty and wise, Style Notes is the ultimate insider's guide – a knowledgeable but not-too-serious take on the wonders and weirdness of the world of fashion, style and life beyond.




The Lazy Genius Way


Book Description

Be productive without sacrificing peace of mind using Lazy Genius principles that help you focus on what really matters and let go of what doesn't. If you need a comprehensive strategy for a meaningful life but are tired of reading stacks of self-help books, here is an easy way that actually works. No more cobbling together life hacks and productivity strategies from dozens of authors and still feeling tired. The struggle is real, but it doesn't have to be in charge. With wisdom and wit, the host of The Lazy Genius Podcast, Kendra Adachi, shows you that it's not about doing more or doing less; it's about doing what matters to you. In this book, she offers fourteen principles that are both practical and purposeful, like a Swiss army knife for how to be a person. Use them in combination to "lazy genius" anything, from laundry and meal plans to making friends and napping without guilt. It's possible to be soulful and efficient at the same time, and this book is the blueprint. The Lazy Genius Way isn't a new list of things to do; it's a new way to see. Skip the rules about getting up at 5 a.m. and drinking more water. Let's just figure out how to be a good person who can get stuff done without turning into The Hulk. These Lazy Genius principles--such as Decide Once, Start Small, Ask the Magic Question, and more--offer a better way to approach your time, relationships, and piles of mail, no matter your personality or life stage. Be who you already are, just with a better set of tools.




The Honest Life (Enhanced Edition)


Book Description

Enhanced Edition includes exclusive videos featuring a candid look at Jessica Alba's Honest Life. As a new mom, Jessica Alba wanted to create the safest, healthiest environment for her family. But she was frustrated by the lack of trustworthy information on how to live healthier and cleaner--delivered in a way that a busy mom could act on without going to extremes. In 2012, with serial entrepreneur Brian Lee and environmental advocate Christopher Gavigan, she launched The Honest Company, a brand where parents can find reliable information and products that are safe, stylish, and affordable. The Honest Life shares the insights and strategies she gathered along the way. The Honest Life recounts Alba's personal journey of discovery and reveals her tips for making healthy living fun, real, and stylish, while offering a candid look inside her home and daily life. She shares strategies for maintaining a clean diet (with favorite family-friendly recipes) and embraces nontoxic choices at home and provides eco-friendly decor tips to fit any budget. Alba also discusses cultivating a daily eco beauty routine, finding one's personal style without resorting to yoga pants, and engaging in fun, hands-on activities with kids. Her solutions are easy, chic, and down-to-earth: they're honest. And discovering everyday ways to live naturally and authentically--true to you--could be honestly life-changing.




The New Southern Style


Book Description

A vibrantly illustrated exploration of the creative, inclusive, and inspiring movement happening in today’s Southern interior design The American South is a place steeped in history and tradition. We think of sweet tea, thick drawls, and even thicker summer air. It is also a place with a fraught history, complicated social norms, and dated perspectives. Yet among the makers and artists of the South, there is a powerful movement afoot. Alyssa Rosenheck shines a much-needed spotlight on a burgeoning community of people who are taking what’s beloved, inherent, and honored in the South and making it their own. The New Southern Style tours more than 30 homes and includes interviews with the designers, artists, and creative entrepreneurs who are reinventing Southern design and culture. This beautifully illustrated book is sure to inspire the home and soul.




The Perfect Life


Book Description

Everyone thinks I’m a murderer and after a while, it’s easier to just give in. That’s what I learned in prison. But what about now that I’m free? I have outrun my past. I have a new life, a future. But what about my old identity? Isabelle thinks it’s worth fighting for. Isabelle thinks that I can get my sentence erased. But I know better. Corruption runs deep. That’s why I got convicted in the first place. I want to clear my name, but at what cost? What more will I have to give up in order to get to the truth? Praise for Charlotte Byrd “BEST AUTHOR YET! Charlotte has done it again! There is a reason she is an amazing author and she continues to prove it! I was definitely not disappointed in this series!!” ★★★★★ “LOVE!!! I loved this book and the whole series!!! I just wish it didn't have to end. I am definitely a fan for life!!! ★★★★★ “Extremely captivating, sexy, steamy, intriguing, and intense!” ★★★★★ “Addictive and impossible to put down.” ★★★★★ “What a magnificent story from the 1st book through book 6 it never slowed down always surprising the reader in one way or the other. Nicholas and Olive's paths crossed in a most unorthodox way and that's how their story begins it's exhilarating with that nail biting suspense that keeps you riding on the edge the whole series. You'll love it!” ★★★★★ “What is Love Worth. This is a great epic ending to this series. Nicholas and Olive have a deep connection and the mystery surrounding the deaths of the people he is accused of murdering is to be read. Olive is one strong woman with deep convictions. The twists, angst, confusion is all put together to make this worthwhile read.” ★★★★★ “Fast-paced romantic suspense filled with twists and turns, danger, betrayal, and so much more.” ★★★★★ “Decadent, delicious, & dangerously addictive!” - Amazon Review ★★★★★ “Titillation so masterfully woven, no reader can resist its pull. A MUST-BUY!” - Bobbi Koe, Amazon Review ★★★★★ “Captivating!” - Crystal Jones, Amazon Review ★★★★★ “Sexy, secretive, pulsating chemistry…” - Mrs. K, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★ “Charlotte Byrd is a brilliant writer. I've read loads and I've laughed and cried. She writes a balanced book with brilliant characters. Well done!” -Amazon Review ★★★★★ “Hot, steamy, and a great storyline.” - Christine Reese ★★★★★ “My oh my....Charlotte has made me a fan for life.” - JJ, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★ “Wow. Just wow. Charlotte Byrd leaves me speechless and humble… It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. Once you pick it up, you won't put it down.” - Amazon Review ★★★★★ “ Intrigue, lust, and great characters...what more could you ask for?!” - Dragonfly Lady ★★★★★




Stella


Book Description

Seventeen-year-old Stella Hamilton is the star blazing at the heart of Temperley High. Leader of the maliciously exclusive elite, she is envied and lusted after in equal measure. And in the Hamilton tradition, she is in the final stage of a six-year campaign to achieve her destiny: love with her equally popular male equivalent, and a triumphant election to Head Girl. Caitlin Clarke has lived a quietly conformist life in New York City – until, with the collapse of her parents' marriage, she's sent across the Atlantic for a strict English boarding school education. As soon as she arrives at Temperley, she learns that the only important rules are the unwritten ones. The upper echelons of her new society are marked not by neat dresses and Kate Middleton hair, but by skinny jeans, cigarettes and scars. It's a world of the beautiful and the dangerous, and acceptance means staying on the right side of the most beautiful and dangerous of them all. As Caitlin's popularity grows, she discovers that not everyone is happy under Stella's rule – that it might finally be time for a new order among the Stars and the civilians. Fighting the system, however, means Caitlin must tread the same dark path as Stella, where absolute power and absolute destruction are only a breath away . . .




Make It Up


Book Description

Ever think of making your own beauty products -- handmade, high performance, healthy alternatives to just about every chemical laden product you currently put on your face and body? It's easier than you think! In Make It Up author Marie Rayma shares the recipes she has developed through years of trial, error, and testing to come up with the very best. This is real makeup and skincare: bright lipsticks, quality mineral powders, long-wearing eyeliners, and masks and cleansers that yield results. Rayma walks you through natural ingredients available online or at health food stores. These awesome oils, butters, clays, and minerals will replace the petroleum products, artificial colors, and lab-created mystery fragrances that have untold effects on our bodies. Products can be tailored for individual needs -- from swapping out ingredients not suitable for sensitive skin to whipping up the perfect colors suited for any complexion. With easy-to-follow instruction, Make It Up provides more than 40 essential cosmetics and skin care projects so you can make just what you want, when you need it.




The Consumer Society Reader


Book Description

The Consumer Society Reader features a range of key works on the nature and evolution of consumer society. Included here is much-discussed work by leading critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Susan Bordo, Dick Hebdige, bell hooks, and Janice Radway. Also included is a full range of classics, such as Frankfurt School writers Adorno and Horkheimer on the Culture Industry; Thorstein Veblen's oft-cited writings on "conspicuous consumption"; Betty Friedan on the housewife's central role in consumer society; John Kenneth Galbraith's influential analysis of the "affluent society"; and Pierre Bourdieu on the notion of "taste." "Consumer society--the 'air we breathe,' as George Orwell has described it--disappears during economic downtruns and political crises. It becomes visible again when prosperity seems secure, cultural transformation is too rapid, or enviornmental disasters occur. Such is the time in which we now find ourselves. As the roads clog with gas-guzzling SUVs and McMansions proliferate in the suburbs, the nation is once again asking fundamental questions about lifestyle. Has 'luxury fever,' to use Robert Frank's phrase, gotten out of hand? Are we really comfortable with the 'Brand Is Me' mentality? Have we gone too far in pursuit of the almighty dollar, to the detriment of our families, communities, and natural enviornment? Even politicians, ordinarily impermeable to questions about consumerism, are voicing doubts... [and] polls suggest majorities of Americans feel the country has become too materialistic, too focused on getting and spending, and increasingly removed from long-standing non-materialist values." —From the introduction by Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor




Shared Island


Book Description

It had been almost a year since Todd and I decided to go our separate ways. It was a mutual decision to break up. We had simply grown apart. We still loved each other very much, but we just couldn't seem to get past the differences that grew between us the last year that we were together. It wasn't an easy decision for either one of us. We did, however, remain friends through the break up. We still talked to each other all the time, and in the first few months after the breakup, I found it hard to talk to him and not ask if he wanted to try and work things out only because I didn't want to be alone. I was learning firsthand what the word lonely really meant. There were a couple of other boyfriends before Todd, but I knew that they weren't going to last. They had simply been someone to hang out with and have fun with, someone to go out to dinner with or a movie. I had no intentions of getting too serious with them, like I had with Todd. I had always thought that Todd was the one for me, my true and everlasting soul mate. He made me feel special, and he didn't obsess over me or what I did. I felt that I could be myself¯a free spirit¯with him. He was soft and loving toward me; he was protective but not overbearing. He made me feel safe. I knew that I didn't have to worry about anyone hurting me. Todd would stand back and let things happen till he sees that I needed his help. Then he would step in and take over. No one messed with me while I was with Todd.




Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder


Book Description

In a world obsessed with appearance, it is not surprising that body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD -- an emotionally painful obsession with perceived flaws in one's appearance -- has manifested itself as a troubling and relatively common problem for many individuals. In The Broken Mirror, the first and most definitive book on BDD, Dr. Katharine A. Phillips provided a comprehensive manual for patients and their physicians by drawing on years of clinical practice, scientific research, and professional evaluations of over 1,000 patients. Now, in Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder: An Essential Guide , the world's leading authority on BDD reaches out to patients, their friends, and their families with this concise and updated handbook. BDD causes sufferers to be obsessed by perceived flaws in their appearance and may afflict as much as two percent of the population, or nearly five million people. Many sufferers are able to function well in society, but remain secretly obsessed by their "hideous acne" or "horrible nose," sneaking constant peeks at a pocket mirror, or spending hours at a time redoing makeup. Others find their lives disintegrate because of their appearance obsessions. It is not an uncommon disorder, simply a hidden one, since sufferers are often embarrassed to tell even their closest friends about their concerns. Using stories and interviews to show the many different behaviors and symptoms of BDD, and a quick self-assessment questionnaire, Dr. Phillips guides readers through the basics of the disorder and through the many treatment options that work and don't work. With Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder: An Essential Guide, sufferers will find both helpful advice and much needed reassurance in a compact, down-to-earth indispensable book.