I have no space for a PHL of my own right now. The sexy hilltop lovenest we bought seven years ago now has exactly 100% more humans and approximately 300% more noise-making plastic things that must go…somewhere. So imagine my surprise when, surfing for beautiful things to write about on this blog, I came across this.

How gorgeous is THIS?!? I am enthralled by this and it just proves my point. Covetworthy Tip #938:  Open your eyes. Covetworthy is everywhere. This is elevated beyond a library: it’s an art piece, a conversation starter, and yes, the mother of all geek chic projects. I mean, who organizes their books according to jacket color? Are we in agreement that this will make it impossible to find a specific book? But aren’t we also in agreement that we don’t give a rat’s ass if the results are this good?

This photo has inspired me to create beauty around me and to find luxury in the little things, the mundane, the everyday. So today I’m starting with my bookcase.

What are you inspired to make more beautiful?

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Earlier this year, I had to end my relationship…with television. After making sweet love to my Tivo all winter, I decided to break it off with my remote and go back to the books. I went literal, literally.

I have been an avid reader all my life, but for too long saying those words was cowpie. Living in NYC, I exhibited all the symptoms of a real reader – my four room apartment had but one television, on which I watched Seinfeld and the occasional rented video. I finished a book a week MINIMUM and frequented lit lovefests. Now my home has two more TVs than bedrooms, all but one have DVRs and my two-year-old can wield the remote with the best of ‘em. It’s just wrong.

My problem is/was that I had gotten out of the habit of reading. My TV and magazine addictions and their lure of good/bad, drama/suspense/conclusion wrapped in 22 minutes or 2 pages really jacked me up. Read the titles and you know the full story.

I took my book project seriously. I knew that, because I was rusty, picking up Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was probably going to be abandoned at the driveway. So I created categories, from the Brain-Candiest to “The Impressives.” Herewith, my report card (categories in italics, actual works in bold:

1. Chicky but Not Chick Lit. (Suffering through 2 hours of rom-com onscreen is agonizing enough. I couldn’t bear giving my nights and nail appointments over to it in print.) I read Valley of the Dolls. What a fun romp. Must have a dinner party with the girls to watch the DVD. Maribou slippers required. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Shanghai Girls both by Lisa See. Enjoyable easy reads that made me treasure my friendships.
2. True Classic. As I do once a year, I read Their Eyes Were Watching God, and as I do once a year, loved it. I’m reading Wuthering Heights, which I haven’t done since 1989. The only one not completed, since other books keep cutting the line. Case in point…
3. Parenting. I read Nurture Shock, and it was indeed a shock. This book blew my mind. I have a lunch date-slash-discussion about it later this week and I cannot wait. This book rocked the San Andreas fault of my parenting ideals, and the aftershocks keep coming.
4. The Impressives: Outliers. Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The End of Overeating – also a mind-blower. Another look at how the food industry has coopted and irrevocably altered the way, the amount and the quality of we eat.

So I give myself an A- for taking on and almost completing the challenge (damn you, Wuthering!!)  I’m starting it up again for winter. Want to read together? Here are my new categories, books yet to be selected:

• Something sentimental, a story that will remind me how precious and fleeting this all is. Love Story perhaps?
• Biography – I’m leaning towards Jackie O, probably because I just saw a doc about the Kennedys that got me all hyped
• An underappreciated gem
• A new voice. I read Uwen Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them last year and was reminded how delicious a new discovery can be.
• Domestic bliss – I’ll be home cooking and entertaining guests from now until January. I sure as shit better figure out how to make it pleasurable and presentable.

Happy reading!
Sxxoo

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See, I have this ritual. I stack all the magazines in order of reverse relevance. The top of this pile is the least of the bunch, the non-essentials, the take ‘ems or leave ‘ems. Kind of like the step-cousins you get seated next to at weddings. They offer mild amusement at best, but no substance. Once seen, quickly forgotten, never again referenced. Sorry, People Style Watch, that means YOU. (And, ummm, how did you get my address in the first place?)

Next up are the Fluffy but Fabulous mags, like a gaggle of giggly cousins that are always available for a good laugh and a good dish. Lucky, you make me nostalgic for when I spent Saturdays flitting from shop to shop and every nail hut, bookstore and Tasti D-Lite in between. Ah, InStyle, the hours I spent pilfering those sticky tabs from Lucky to adorn your pages. And, W, all rich bitch and insidery, bragging about your polo matches and Hamptons weekends. What-evah. I still love you, even though you try just a little too hard to make me like you.

Then the ubercool Big Sisters, the ones that serve up you-need-to-know-this journalism with you-know-you-want-this photo spreads. Essence. Vanity Fair. And I’m forgetting one… Oh, O.

And at long last, after I’ve devoured and tabbed and dog-eared and discarded, I have finally, blissfully, reached the bottom of the heap, which is actually the creme de la creme. Vogue, the well-meaning (and original Mean Girl) grand dame who sits so high and deigns to look so low. She doles out her advice, her suggestions, her proclamations, and yes, her withering disapproval. My loyalty to Vogue is rooted in tradition: I kiss La Dona’s ring because I always have. Sitting at her side are Elle and Harper’s BAZAAR, the benevolent favorite aunties to whom I am wholly besotted. They take Mama Vogue’s hardness and soften her edges, dispensing trade secrets with nods and winks, tongues firmly planted in cheeks; all the while, expecting, encouraging me even, to use my inner compass and direct my own style path.

I know this post probably bores the patterned leggings off some of you, and I’m fine with that. I’m too engrossed with the family to notice.

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