So, what are you reading now?

At the moment, I'm reading Edith Wharton's "Italian Backgrounds." I've read lots of travel diaries about Italy, but Wharton's is amazing, like some delicious multi-layered tiramisu. You can't decide which is more lovely -- the subject or the prose.

This is escapist reading at its most, well, ravishing...

Photo by StopKatie.

Patti Smith Wins

Some very cool news:  The National Book Foundation just announced that Smith's autobiography "Just Kids," covering her years as muse to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won a National Book Award this year in the non-fiction category.

More winners here.

Add: Smith recently told Galleycat that writing is like exercise. "You have to commit to doing it and you have to do it every day," she said.
I wonder if blogging counts?

My Favorite Used Bookstore

The great thing about reading is it takes you places you've never been before or never thought to go. And there's no place where that's truer than in a great secondhand bookstore...



It's a place where tattered best sellers from a decade ago
merge with books that defeat time...

*

And literary journals are mixed with foreign magazines...



Like some perfect literary alchemy...



So this is my favorite hangout...



It's called Read Books and it's in Eagle Rock, a neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Lately I've been buying a book and a magazine (requiring much restraint), and then heading a block down the street to Auntie Em's for coffee and a chocolate cupcake.

Added bliss: sitting at an outside table, reading and watching
the sunset over the Santa Monica Mountains.

ADD: I just realized that this post has received comments from readers in six countries: the US, the UK, the Philippines, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. So lovely to know that the love of wonderful old books is global!

Are you on Tumblr?

I'm finally trying to do something with my long neglected Tumblr page.

Do you want to exchange links?!

Hamlet, the FB News Feed Edition

Want to read more?
Click Here!

(Hamlet page created by the very clever Sarah Schmelling.)

Liebemarlene at the Hemingway House

Rhiannon Leifheit, one of my favorite vintage fashion bloggers, took a trip this week to Key West,  Florida, where she visited the Hemingway House. I especially love the picture of the cat with six toes. (Hemingway adored cats and now the estate grounds are populated with them!)

Rhiannon has more lovely pictures on her blog, Liebemarlene.

More about the Hemingway cats here.

It's official: Carey Mulligan will play Daisy

After weeks of speculation, director Baz Luhrmann announced today that Carey Mulligan will play Daisy Buchanan in his adaptation of the Great Gatsby...

"I was privileged to explore the character with some of the world’s most talented actresses, each one bringing their own particular interpretation," said Luhrmann, who also considered Blake Lively, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, Abbie Cornish
and Keira Knightley for the part.

"However, specific to this particular production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, I was thrilled to pick up the phone an hour ago to the young Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan and say to her: ‘Hello, Daisy Buchanan,’” said Luhrmann.

She'll star opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie roles played in 1974
by Robert Redford and Mia Farrow.

What do you think of Carey in this role?


(Photos, above by Mikael Jansson for Interview Magazine.)

Are you ready for a royal wedding?

I'm very excited about the Royal Engagement!   I need this distraction: Like what sort of dress should Kate wear? And where should they honeymoon? And how will they decorate the castle and all that?

The Internet is buzzing with royal trivia and advice:

For example,  Fashionista offers suggestions on wedding dresses.

The Telegraph suggests that Victoria Beckham design the royal gown.

AOL ponders whether Kate could be queen.

The Daily Beast applauds William's decision to marry a commoner.

The Queen sent her congrats on Twitter?

The engagement china is already set.

And Kate will wear Diana's engagement ring!

Oh, and by the way, the Beatles are on iTunes. 

"French Essence," by Vicki Archer

Ten years ago, Vicki Archer bought and restored a seventeenth-century property in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, and told the story in her lushly gorgeous book, My French Life. Now, in collaboration again with photographer Carla Coulson, she shares her love of her current place of residence -- Provence.

Her new book, French Essence, is definitely on my xmas wish list. Vicki -- who also has a beautiful blog -- knows how to pack a lifetime of beauty, ambience and inspiration into her stylish tomes.

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Studio
• Price: $45

And Now Presenting: Jane Austen on Facebook

Haha...I'm obsessed with these..

Who would you like to see next!?

.

Hitch

Hello my dears,

Have you been following journalist and critic Christopher Hitchens' courageous stories about living with stage four cancer?

Hitchens' illness was discovered when he collapsed at the beginning of a national tour earlier this year to promote his autobiography, "Hitch 22". Since then, he has written with humor, intelligence and unflinching honesty about life in what he calls "Tumortown" in a remarkable  series of columns for Vanity Fair.

How serious is his condition? Well, as he likes to point out, there are no stage five cancers.

Again and again during his illness, he has returned to the consolations of great literature. In a Guardian interview over the weekend, Hitchens says that when he conceives his life's work--all the journalism and debates and polemics--he thinks of it as a defense of civilization by which he means, first of all, literature.

(Photo, above, from Vanity Fair.)

Wisdom in a Fortune Cookie

We went to dinner this weekend at our favorite neighborhood Chinese restaurant. I was breaking open a fortune cookie and lamenting about how things
haven't been happening fast enough
in my life. Maybe it's one of the underestimated consequences of the recession. Everything takes so much longer: returned emails and phone calls, job offers and freelance. Sometimes I think I could lose my mind with the waiting.

I sighed when this little slip fell from the torn cellophane.

Patience?

Damn prescient fortune cookie, who writes these things?

Little Libraries

This is one of the joys and complexities of living with lots of books:  It seems there's never enough space to store them.  So every nook in our house doubles as a bookshelf.

This is a little snapshot of what our living room looks like in our flat! (The girl in the photograph, above, is my daughter Isabella a few years back.)

Old stools find new life as tuffets and paperback props.

 (I should probably paint this one below, but I sort of like its rustic, workbench look)

I love that Cicero quote: A room without books is like a body without a soul.
*

Happy Weekend & Links

Hello everyone!

What do you have planned this weekend? I'm trying out a new yoga place tomorrow and on Sunday, I'm going to the Hollywood Farmers Market. In between I'm reading Mr. Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt, and a stack of fashion magazines.

So, here are my must-read weekend links:

The Telegraph's review of the new Harry Potter movie, "Deathly Hallows, Part 1."It looks fantastic!

A New York Times' story on fashion stylists as blogging icons.

and...

One Brit's take on Mark Twain, with the impending release of his autobiography (part 1), 100 years after his death.


See you back here Sunday night!

PS: Don't forget to enter the books giveaway. I'll announce a winner on Monday!
(Photo via WishWishWish.)

Lizzy & Darcy

I love these illustrations by Nan Lawson, a Los Angeles artist. She was recently featured on Etsy where she told the story of how she was able to give up her day job to sell her art!

She has even more lovely things in her store.

Giveaway!

As usual, I have way too many books and magazines. Would you like a box with a mix of new and old? Leave a comment here! The winner will be announced tomorrow!


(Photo from When I Paint My Masterpiece.)

The winner is Krissy!

Kate Spade: "Things We Love" Book!

I CAN'T WAIT to get a copy of this book! I LOVE Spade's popular website series "Things We Love" and now, I want to weep with joy that it's in book form. (Sorry, I'm catching my breath now.) I can't find it yet on Amazon. So stay tuned for the release date....


(Via The NeoTraditionalist)

Jane Eyre: Movie Poster & Trailer

Oh this looks good!

But we'll have to wait till March 2011?

Mid-Week Media Round Up

Hello everyone! I've been running between assignments today, but I wanted to check in with some very interesting media links...

So here they are. Enjoy:

Zadie Smith reviews The Social Network for the New York Review of Books. As a Harvard grad (not much older than FB founder Mark Zuckerberg), she recalls the days of Facemash.

Free from printing costs and distribution woes, literary magazines are finding a new life on the Internet, according to The Guardian.

The Financial Times lunches with Rene Redzepi, owner of the famed Copenhagen restaurant, Noma. (The most fantastic restaurant in the world?)

Three great (armchair) travel books

and...

Reasons to love Autumn.

"Audrey 100"

There's a new Audrey Hepurn book out: This one is a luxe compilation of the actress' 100 best photographs, as chosen by her family!

Take a look:









The photos -- which include snapshots, studio portraits and candids -- were taken by such greats as Sir Cecil Beaton, Douglas Kirkland, Norman Parkinson, and Philippe Halsman. "Audrey 100" was written by Ellen Fontana with a forward by the actress' son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer.

The details: Sterling, 192 pages, $40.

Another one for the Xmas list!

(Photos, above, from barnesandnoble.com.)