Beach Books 2011—Part 2

Here's Part 2 of our annual beach books list. Let us know if we missed anything!

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeanette Walls
The author of the stunning Glass Castles is back, this time telling her grandmother's story. It involves such feats as marrying and leaving a bigamist, selling hooch during prohibition, becoming a rodeo rider and other tales that will nearly make you fall off your lounge chair.



The Social Climber's Handbook: A Novel Molly Jong-Fast
If you're a Jackie Collins or Plum Sykes fan, then this is the book for you. The book about an upper eastside housewife who becomes unhinged after the financial meltdown of 2008 is the must-read of the glamaratti.




Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell
For all the die hard Sex and the City fans comes the lastest installment of the prequel to SATC when Carrie spends a summer in the city with Samantha. Carries first date is at La Grenouille, a fancy French place which makes us guess her date is a bit older. Guess she started that pattern early!






Bossypants by Tina Fey
While we don't have a new Chelsea Handler book to look forward to this summer, we do have this tome from Tina Fey. We're guessing it features less sex and more food, but is just as funny.



Missed yesterday's? Read Part 1 of Beach Books 2011.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Beach Books 2011

No trip to the beach or pool is complete without a juicy read. Here are our selects for best beach books 2011:





If You Were Here: A Novel by Jen Lancaster. The author of the hilarious Bitter is the New Black and My Fair Lazy tries her hand at fiction in a story that will delight any Gen Xers' heart. The narrator, Mia and her husband, Mac, move from downtown Chicago to suburb Abington Cambs, the setting of many John Hughes' films. The couple settles in Jake Ryan's house from Sixteen Candles, with hilarious results. 




If You Were Here: A Novel by Abraham Verghese
At 688 pages, this sweeping novel centers around a nun and a British doctor she saves and transverses the globe from India, Ethiopia and New York City. It would be perfect for a long plane ride or when you want to feel smart.




The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
If you haven't read this triology, do yourself a favor and buy all of them now. Yes, the book is for young adults, but we don't know anyone who after reading The Hunger Games hasn't devoured Catching Fire and Mocking Jay within two weeks. They're more addictive than crack.





A Paris Wife by Paula McLain, the best historical fiction we've read in ages, which describes Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their years in Paris.

Check back tomorrow for Part Two of our Best Beach Books 2011.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Late-Summer Beach Reads

If you've already powered through our list of summer beach reads, here are a few more to get you through Labor Day.


There's nothing like a little schadenfreude to go along with that glass of sauvignon blanc while you while away the hours on a lounge chair.  The Recessionistas is an insider's look at fictional families during the 2008 Wall Street bust. Author Alexandra Lebenthal is the CEO of a wealth management firm and a regular on David Patrick Columbia's site, so she's writing about a life she knows well. You can't help but feel a little smug about the simple saneness of your life when you read about how one character has to decide between $500 highlights and reducing her maid's hours. She chooses the latter.




For a hearty laugh, read Alphabet City: My So-Called Sitcom Life by John Paul Buchmeyer, a fellow blogger. It's the true story of JP's life as he envisions it as a sitcom akin to a gay Mary Tyler Moore. It's full of madcap story lines, knee-slapping moments and plenty of special guest stars, including Whoopi Goldberg and Tyra Banks.




Our friend, Shannon, recommends The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship. This heartwarming non-fiction story follows the lives of 11 women from Ames, Iowa who have been friends for 40-years plus. The easy read is a celebration of the power of friendship between women--an idea we wholeheartedly support!



Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

100 Years of Travel Ads

If the Mad Men premiere whetted your appetite for vintage advertising, check out the coffee table book 20th Century Travel: 100 Years Of Globe-Trotting Ads. It's filled with classic ads from the past 100 years when traveling was still glamorous and getting there truly was half the fun.



It make an ideal hostess gift, too, for those of you lucky enough to have snagged invites to a friend's beach house!Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

She's Got Game

Ever wished you had a little more grasp of your favorite game? Melissa Malamut has got you covered with her new book, She's Got Game: The Woman's Guide to Loving Sports (Or Just How to Fake It!).  Malamut not only goes over the basics of football, basketball, baseball, golf and more; but she recommends when to cheer and when to stay quiet (as in when your team is shooting a free throw).  She even goes into the best outfits for each sport (basketball with its climate controlled arenas is the best sport to dress up) and the best time to leave your seats for a snack or a bathroom break.  Malamut is a veteran journalist and sports reporter.  This would be more fun (and less humiliating) than picking up a "Dummy's Guide" if you're looking to impress your man before the next big game.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Review: The Carrie Diaries

Don't judge me, but I've been on a kick of reading high school literature of late. First there was Gossip Girl, then Twilight, next the Vampire Diaries and, most recently, The Carrie Diaries. The book focuses on Carrie as a high school senior.

Carrie is more down to earth than the crew from Gossip Girl, wearing vintage white GoGo boots on her first day of school with nary a fret about a designer label (the book is set in the 80s, before teenagers--even fictional ones--regularly wore couture). Her friends drink at parties and the local dive bar and some of the characters smoke pot, all pretty normal stuff for senior year of high school.

Turns out Carrie was a born feminist and incredibly self-aware, especially as a 17-year old. She had the same relationship with her looks as she did throughout the show, meaning she knows she is cute, but not model-material, which occasionally leads to self-doubt. I am envious of Candace Bushnell, who based the Sex and the City columns for The Observer on her real life, who now has the opportunity to go back an re-write her high school years as fiction. As someone who recently read and cringed her entire way through her diary from 8th grade, that would be a dream come true.

As for the plot of the Carrie Diaries, it's a pretty predictable tale of boys, familial angst and discovering one's passion in life. Carrie's is writing, of course, and she longs to get into the New School's summer writing program all throughout her senior year. She mentions the New School so much, I started to wonder if Candace Bushnell is getting kick backs. (I'm guessing she, or someone she or her editor loves, works there.) Seriously, she doesn't stress about getting into Brown and doesn't even mention a particular safety school, but when it comes to the summer program at the New School, it's like it's the last life boat on the Titanic.

I kept longing for one of the characters to make a cameo: Charlotte, Stanford, anyone! One finally does at the end and a sequel is reportedly in the works. My advice: Check it out from the library or wait until it's available in paperback!

See our Summer 2010 Beach Reading picks.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Big Book of Barbecue

Add this to your list of summer must reads, The Big Book of BBQ: Recipes and Revelations from the Barbecue Belt. The book from the editors of Southern Living features the best barbecue places in the South, info on the most famous barbecue festivals, recipes, and photos that you can gain five pound from just looking at.





For those who prefer their meat from a cow and sans sauce, Steak: One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef, is exactly that. Food writer and Condé Nast Traveler contributor Mark Schatzker details his 18-month search for the perfect steak across Argentina, Scotland, Japan, Europe and the states.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Guide to Summer 2010

The countdown is on to the unofficial start of summer. Read on for the hottest destinations, fashions, cosmetics and more.

What's summer without a long weekend away? For those who aren't fans of the sand and sea, we have  Travel Ideas for city slickers, too.




Check out the must-have shoe for summer: The wedge.




After a year-long hunt, we've finally found the perfect Straw Bags.


and the most glamorous Sun Hat


The only waterproof makeup you'll need



and the Hottest nail polish, courtesy of Mme. Chanel.



Plus the best Beach Reading




and the Playlist of summer.



Last but not least, get yourself beach ready with our tips for Brazilian bikini waxing.


Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection

Beach Reading Summer 2010

It's that time of year to head to the bookstore or library and pick up the beach reads for the summer. Here's our pick for Beach Reading Summer 2010:

We recently had the chance to chat with Chelsea Handler at the Belvedere Pink Grapefruit launch party who says, "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang is my favorite book, it has the funniest stories." When we asked how it was possible that she had any stories left--c'mon, how do you top having a romance with a cruise ship acrobat and vacationing with your dad?--Chelsea said, "I've been pacing myself, but I won't be writing another book for a few more years." Pour yourself a tall Belvedere and soda and savor Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang.



Handbag designer Lauren Merkin gets credit for the next select. She turned us on to The Help, a moving novel about hired help in 1960 Jackson, Mississippi. While that may sound too serious for your lounge chair, it's a beautiful, easy read. Read it before Steven Spielberg makes the movie.




Speaking of books being made into movies, if you haven't read Eat, Pray, Love, pick up a copy before Elizabeth Gilbert morphs into Julia Roberts this August.





Can't wait til June 13 when the third season of True Blood premiers? Neither can we! Get your Sookie, Bill and Eric fix with Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10), the just-released next chapter in the Sookie series.




The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the last in the trilogy that began with The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo.  Since the second (The Girl Who Played with Fire) was better than the first (and didn't take nearly as long to get juicy), we're hoping the trend continues as we follow Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist on another crazy ride.



Finally, for some good, old-fashioned chick lit, try Emily Giffin's Heart of the Matter. If it's anything like her previous books, you'll be laughing through tears!




See our Summer Beach Reading picks 2009 and Summer Beach Reading Picks 2008.Source URL: https://celebrityjetset.blogspot.com/search/label/summer%20beach%20reads
Visit Jet Set Girls for daily updated images of art collection