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Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Ten Simple Lovely Things
Maryam Montague: Marrakesh by Design
Los Angeles was injected with a exciting dose of exoticism last week.
Uberblogger Maryam Montague was in town for a whirlwind visit to promote her brand-new book Marrakesh by Design.
(Photo by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti)
I've been impatiently waiting for this book to come out ever since Maryam told me about it over dinner at her house in Marrakesh, back in December 2009. It's absolutely everything I hoped it would be and more: a step-by-step distillation of Maryam's own Moroccan-inspired style and magical way of living. The photography is breathtakingly gorgeous and Maryam took all the photos herself -- is there anything the woman can't do?!
(Available HERE.)
Last Tuesday, I spent a lovely day driving Maryam around to a few of my favorite stores and then met her again at her book signing on Thursday. It was held at Downtown, one of LA's most stylish antique furniture shops, and it couldn't have been more perfect. Owners David Serrano and Robert Wilson went the extra aesthetic yard to make sure Maryam felt completely at home.
(Oy. I wish I had noticed that price tag when I took the photo.)
The space was brimming with gleaming mirrors and brass lanterns and colorful wares, not to mention a lovely traditional spread of Moroccan hors d'oeuvres and drinks.
Maryam had lots of fans there and they were all pretty fabulous. I had a great time chatting with Nicki Clendening and Callie Jenschke, the talented co-owners of Scout Design in NYC. They are sexy, bohemian girls after my own heart and their website is beyond.
(Vivaciousness x 2.)
And oh, Maryam's book! It's bursting with wonderful design ideas and projects for incorporating a little bit of Moroccan style into your life and adding beauty and versatility to your home.
(All Marrakesh by Design photographs by Maryam Montague.)
There are chapters on Moroccan architecture, color and pattern in which Maryam elegantly lays out the key elements of Moorish style.
Once you've learned the basics, she takes you on a room-by-room tour of all of her favorite spaces and tells you everything you need to recreate the same feeling in your home. (Make a coffee table out of a Moroccan window! Create an Moroccan-inspired seating area!)
The last section of the book focuses on where to shop (both in Morocco and online) and how to determine quality and expertise so that you can be confident with your purchases.
Below is a photo of us on the night we met sitting by the flower-laden fountain in her bewitching home/boutique hotel, Peacock Pavilions. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows stretches her olive grove and above it the impenetrable North African sky. It was after midnight and we were talking in rapid hushed tones, the way you do when you know the evening is winding down and you still have so many things to tell each other. 
(Me with Maryam. December 2009, Marrakesh.)
(Maryam Montague and Lisa Borgnes Giramonti.
May 2012, Los Angeles.)
The Escape Hatch
It wouldn't have to be grand, my little sanctuary.
It could be a wee shed tucked behind the house at the bottom of the garden, like Roald Dahl's was.
(Roald Dahl's writing shed, via the Guardian)
Yes, I know it's barely wider than a sofa, but its diminutive nature appeals to me because there would be no room for distractions. Give me a worn armchair with plumped cushions, a stack of books, a wooden lap board for my computer and an old wireless tuned to Radio 4 and leave me be. I could travel to the other side of the world during the day and still make the 3pm school run.
What I Would Read:
Trains and Buttered Toast, John Betjeman
"The Sound Machine" , Roald Dahl
My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell
What I Would Drink:
PG Tips Classic Blend
What I Would Listen To:
BBC Radio Theme, "Housewives' Choice", Jack Strachey
* * *
And look at this little round house. It's straight out of J.R.R. Tolkien, don't you think?
In my fantasy, I have taken it on a six month sublet from Bilbo Baggins while he's off on his journey to return the Ring. In the novel, the house has "paneled walls, tiled and carpeted floors, polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats" -- and I'm sure this one does, too. I can see myself here dividing my time between reading, writing and lots of productive puttering (tea-making, scone-baking and gardening, for instance).
What I Would Read:
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
One Pair of Hands, Monica Dickens
The Bucolic Plague, Josh Kilmer-Purcell
What I Would Drink:
Homemade elderflower cordial
What I Would Listen To:
"The Old Walking Song", Charles McCreery
* * *
Last year, I wrote about my deep love for gypsy caravans...and the passing of time has not cooled my ardor.
(via tumblr)
The caravan above isn't on wheels but mine would be because the idea that I could pack up at any moment and head off on some romantic, restless, come-what-may adventure totally appeals to me in theory. I would toss big kilim pillows on the floor and hang billowing curtains in the doorway. Letting my hair grow and donning peasant blouses and long ethnic skirts goes without saying. I would be Talitha Getty on the outside and Bruce Chatwin on the inside.
What I Would Read:
Justine (The Alexandria Quartet), Lawrence Durrell
Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig
City of Djinns, William Dalrymple
What I Would Drink:
Créme Yvette liqueur
What I Would Listen To:
"Once Upon A Time In America" by Ennio Morricone
Editor's Update: A prior commitment prevented me from making the Nathan Turner lecture on Sunday. Did you go?
Slow Daze
In truth, the banal moments of the day are the most seductive to me. It is in the lighting of a fire on a cold morning, or in the pouring of wine and the pulling up of chairs to read together at the end of an afternoon of errands, that love really exerts its magic.
~ Dominique Browning, "Slow Love"
It's hot here. I've been slightly blog-neglectful and I apologize. After a very un-Hollywood-like May and June (fog, gloom, drizzle), the big fiery Klieg light in the sky is now on overdrive. Scorching days are supplanted by a mohair haze of heat in the evenings. The only thing I feel like doing is retreating into the shadows...and curling up with a book.
Thank God for "Slow Love." 
You are all familiar with Dominique Browning as the glamorous editor-in-chief of the late lamented House & Garden magazine. In 2007, the magazine abruptly folded and she found herself suddenly out of a job and with no way to define herself -- after all, who was she without her high-powered career? Her memoir beautifully articulates the bumpy process of discovering a new purpose-driven life for herself. It's poignant, it's funny, it's honest, but most of all, it's inspiring:
Slow living, I have come to understand, opens up the prospect of slow love, the most sustaining sort of love I have ever known -- a love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things, available to all of us, at any time, should we choose to engage: family, friendship, food, music, art, books, our bodies, our minds our souls, and the life that blooms and buzzes all around us.
~ Dominique Browning, "Slow Love"
Last night Luca and I grabbed our books and sat in the cool of the dining room until the sun finally sank behind the trees. I would say that we read in silence, but as he kept bursting out with breathless blow-by-blow accounts of the last 10 pages of his Percy Jackson book, that description would not be quite accurate. I realized with a pang that one day I would miss those interruptions.
Slow love is about knowing what you've got before it's gone.
~ "Slow Love"
I've had huge hero worship for Dominique Browning for years and so when I was invited to her book signing recently in Santa Monica, I was beside myself at the prospect of meeting her. She spoke eloquently and passionately about her transformational journey and her struggles and fears along the way, and she inspired us all with her lessons of rediscovering grace and self-empowerment.
The biggest thrill, though, was that she knew of this blog. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Lucky for us, she has started her own blog called "Slow Love Life." It's beautiful, elegant and impassioned, just like her. Go ahead, click over there now.
xx/lisa
Brilliance, On Sale
Do you know about Daedalus Books? The huge online bookstore that sells erudite books at bargain prices for bibliophiles like you and me?
I've been ordering books from them since way back in the pre-Internet age when they mailed out a monthly catalog. The prices are always fabulous (up to 90% off) and they charge only $5.95 for shipping, regardless of how many books you order.
It's inevitable that when I have a list of errands/projects that need attention absolutely immediately right this minute, I find myself sifting through their spellbinding selection of books in search of future acquisitions. Here are a few I found today when I was supposed to be doing something else:
(University of California Press)
I can never get enough of these two fabulous creatures: Jazz Age socialites and American expats who moved to the South of France in the 1920's, they palled around with Fitzgerald and Picasso, threw legendary parties, virtually created the concept of the "jet set," and oozed their own brand of Riviera style.
List price: $34.95 Sale price: $9.98
*Note: If Gerald and Sara are new to you, two books you'll want to read at once are "Everybody Was So Young" by Amanda Vaill and Calvin Tompkin's "Living Well Is The Best Revenge."
(Thames and Hudson)
Think of it as the styling secrets of a master painter. The book features period photographs that show how Matisse created the mise-en-scénes for his paintings: "perhaps an ornate Venetian chair partners with a wrought-iron table displaying a yellow pitcher and melons." Bonus: It's edited by Marie-France Boyer, Paris editor of World of Interiors magazine.
List price:$24.95 Sale Price: $5.98
(University of Yale Press)
I've had many shadowy encounters with Mary Butts; she's been a Zelig-like figure lurking in the background of countless biographies that I've read. This could be my opportunity to get to know her face-to-face. Writer, nonconformist, free spirit, she was on intimate terms with luminaries such as Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein and many more.
List price: $55.00 Sale price: $6.98
(Assouline Press)
I have picked up this book a number of times in stores; it's beautifully art-directed and filled with gorgeous photographs of her personal art collection. And I'm smitten with that glorious cover portrait of her by Alfred Courmes.
List price: $18.95 Sale price: $5.98
I'm thinking this bio will give me the inside scoop on the Divine Ms. G. An enfant terrible of the art world, she lived brazenly and fearlessly, "a cultural mover and shaker" with "legendary sexual appetites, including lovers Max Ernst, Samuel Beckett, and Marcel Duchamp." You go girl.
List Price: Import Sale price: $5.98
(Penguin Press)
The subtitle for the paperback version of this book says it all, really: "The Tragicomic, Mind-Altering Odyssey of Allen Ginsberg, a Holy Fool, a Lost Muse, a Dharma Bum, and his Prickly Bride in India."
List price: $25.95 Sale price: $5.98
(Atria Press)
From Leopold Bloom's grilled kidney breakfasts to Jay Gatsby's decadent feasts to Charles Dickens high teas to Bertie Wooster's champagne lunches, author Sean Brand details eating scenes from a multitude of favorite classics.
List price: $18.00 Sale price: $1.98
(Atlantic Books)
I've read quite a few of Julian's books over the years, and this one sounds especially funny. From the review: "In these piquant essays, Barnes wonders how big a "lump" is, or is a "slug" is larger than a "gout," and seeks gastronomic precision -- a quest that leaves him seduced by the unpretentious enthusiasm in Jane Grigson's cookbooks, infuriated by Nigel Slater's vague sense of what fits in a fry pan, and reassured by Mrs. Beeton's exacting Victorian values."
List price: Import Sale price: $4.98
Monday Miscellany
I am waiting for my breakfast and then to be driven to adventure camp...
...and I am waiting to be let outside so I can go lizard-hunting and bring back a trophy tail...
...and I am waiting to have my flowers gently collected and dried and made into lavender sachets (as you keep promising to do)...
...and I am waiting to be recovered in something fabulous and slightly unexpected...
...and I am waiting to be used in a way that enhances my flavor profile...
...and I am waiting to be devoured...
...oh and please please so are we...
...and I am waiting to be rehung so that I can gaze upon a more scenic vista...
...and I am waiting to be listened to...remember how happy I make you?
(Charlotte Gainsbourg CD, available HERE)
...and I am waiting patiently to support your future endeavors...
...and I am waiting to be noticed, right now, right this minute, in my very last explosion of beauty (when I'm gone, remember that I lived fully and fearlessly, won't you?)...
...and I am waiting to be tucked in because I have camp tomorrow.
What is waiting for you today?
Bookish
(Eduouard Vuillard, "The Blue Inkstand on the Mantelpiece," c. 1900)
You are like me.
You love books with a fierce abandon.
You love their cracked spines, their heft, their covers, their aromatic papery scents.
You know that with a book in your hands, you are only one page away from a fantastic journey.
You know that with a book in your hands, you are connected to a convergence of thought that brings the past passionately roaring into the now.
Books have shaped you, enlightened you, consoled you and given you a rich interior life, a virtual library of memories that has become embedded in the very fibers of your being.
Am I right?
I think I am.
So does this necklace move you in the same manner in which it moves me?
(Autumnal Library necklace via Etsy)
Can you imagine wearing this? Isn't it so 18th century-Steampunk-Romantic? Paired with bare skin and the simplest of outfits, I think it's inexpressibly poetic in a Keats/Shelley/Lord Byron kind of way.
I'm partial to the entire library myself, but for those of you who prefer a single volume, there's this one (and many others).
(Small Fetters journal necklace via Etsy)
iThink. iLike. iPad.
It arrived on Saturday. Our mailman said he was delivering 140 that day to our neighborhood alone and that people were opening their front doors before he even had time to ring the bell. We laid it on the table and looked at it. Luca said it felt like Willy Wonka's golden ticket.
We agreed that he could touch it first.
After we were able to pry it away from his hot little hands, we synced it up and started playing around with it. I set it on my new cookbook stand and the angle proved perfect for viewing. I love the juxtaposition of Black Forest carved wood cradling sleek 21st century components. It's hearth meets high-tech. Piero played an ABC news video and the image was great with no false starts or stuttering.
When I finally got my husband to let go of it, I tapped the Epicurious application. Up it came and as you can see, the colors are lush and razor-sharp.
I did a random search for "pancakes" and was instantly given pages of delicious-looking options.
Then it was Luca's turn. After he wrested it from my hands, he clicked on "Winnie the Pooh" (free with every iPad). I have always sniffed at reading books online because I so love the real thing, but I have to say that the experience was surprisingly pleasurable.
When it came around to my turn again, I hit paydirt. I discovered that with the FreeBooks application, you can download thousands of books that have been deemed "public domain." (Most books become public domain when their copyright expires, which is anywhere from 50 to 100 years or so.)
Many of the titles come courtesy of Project Gutenberg, a website I highly admire. In fact, I have downloaded dozens of out-of-print books onto my office computer...but have never gotten around to reading them because I have been reluctant to read an entire novel while sitting at a desk.
That's all changed now.
In the span of ten minutes, I downloaded 25 books, including:
Adam Bede, George Eliot
Beasts and Superbeasts, Saki
Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Camilla, Fanny Burney
Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley
Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey
Fanny Hill, John Cleland
Going into Society, Charles Dickens
The Longest Journey, E. M. Forster
Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell
Mugby Junction, Charles Dickens
The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe
Shamela, Henry Fielding
South of France, Giacomo Casanova
Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
Sylvia's Lovers, Elizabeth Gaskell
The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
I was pinching myself.
And look, I know it's not paper, but it mimics it pretty darn nicely.
When Piero finally pried it from my grasp, he touched the Netflix icon and up came our account with all the movies listed in our queue.
We wondered how it was at streaming videos and so I asked him to take "Hideous Kinky" for a test-drive. He pressed "Play."
When Kate Winslet opened her eyes after the opening credits, I swear it was like she was in the kitchen with us.
However...
There is room for improvement. The iPad doesn't play Flash videos (nothing onYouTube worked) -- although there's supposed to be some way around it which we haven't figured out yet. Also, you can't multitask (i.e. listen to music and browse the web).
On the plus side, I thought the keyboard was easy to use and -- gasp! -- accurate (unlike my iPhone, which usually turns "Hey Piero" into "Hwy Pwuri").
We bought an iPad 50% out of curiosity and 50% because we are diehard Apple people and 0% because we had any preconceived idea of how we were going to use it. It's only been a day, but I can tell you this: using it is a very personal experience. In a way, it feels like a true home computer because its size and portability mean it doesn't belong to any one room or person. We can pick it up, pass it around, share it and take it anywhere. Owning one doesn't change anything, but in a way it changes everything. I don't know. We'll see.
After all that excitement, we powered it down and turned our attention to breakfast.
Pancakes, of course.
(Note: The opinions expressed about this product are strictly those of the blogger and were not solicited in any way.)
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