Download or read book The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A sure comic touch . . . smart and sweet . . . a tribute to the pleasures of friendship." —The New Yorker In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty. At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love. Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative. To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen?
Download or read book The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty A Novel written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A sure comic touch . . . smart and sweet . . . a tribute to the pleasures of friendship." —The New Yorker In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty. At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love. Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative. To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen?
Download or read book The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by Thorndike Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thorndike Press large print reviewers' choice."
Download or read book Beyond Beautiful written by Anuschka Rees and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate guide to building confidence in your body, beauty, clothes and life in an era of toxic social media-driven beauty standards. “A self-confidence bible that every woman should read.”—Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet Empowering, insightful, and psychology-driven, Beyond Beautiful is filled with proven, no-BS strategies for proactive self-care. This stylish and practical handbook takes a deep-dive into all of the factors that make it hard to feel good about yourself, and offers sage answers to tricky questions, like: • Why do I hate the way I look in pictures? • How can I stop feeling like a total slob compared to everyone on social media? • How exactly does this "self-love" thing work? • How do I find the confidence to use less make up, stop shaving, or wear what I want? • Is body positivity really the answer? Illustrated with full-color art, Beyond Beautiful is a much-needed breath of fresh air that will help you live your best life, know your worth, and stop wasting any more precious energy and mental space worrying about the way you look. Praise for Beyond Beautiful “This compact book delves into every aspect of the body-image problem and sets forth feasible ideas for accepting one’s physical appearance to enhance confidence and joy.”—Library Journal (starred review) “Rees’s emboldening message will surely help any reader struggling with self-confidence.”—Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Love Creeps written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York love story that’s “part suspense comedy and part philosophical treatise on the neurosis of love” from the author of Nude Men (Bret Easton Ellis). At thirty-two years old, Lynn Gallagher is one of the five most influential contemporary-art gallery owners in Manhattan. Too bad her face is dead. Not so, says Lynn’s assistant, but that is how it feels when she compares it to her stalker’s face. Alan Morton may be a plump, goofy-looking accountant, but his face glows with life when he peers at Lynn through her gallery window. The difference is that Alan wants something—her—very badly, while Lynn wants nothing at all. So she decides to stalk. The object of her obsession—French attorney Roland Dupont—is chosen at random in a Chelsea bakery. He is attractive, but it is not until he expresses his disinterest in her that Lynn begins to truly desire him. Alan, jealous of Lynn’s newfound hobby, befriends Roland to find out what she sees in him. When Roland learns that he acquired his stalker by happenstance, he decides that he might be interested in Lynn after all. Soon all three are brazenly pursuing each other across the city—from adult education classes in the art of beading to meetings of Stalker’s Anonymous—as they try to figure out what it is that they truly want. The advice of Ray, the homeless psychologist who observes their madcap comings and goings, is not much help at all: “Take a break, an antidepressant. Get hold of yourselves.” A hip and darkly humorous novel about the mysteries of romance, Love Creeps is pure Amanda Filipacchi—funny, wicked, and wise.
Download or read book Face Value written by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Whitefield-Madrano ... examines the relationship between appearance and science, social media, sex, friendship, language, and advertising to show how beauty actually affects us day to day. Through ... research and interviews with dozens of women across all walks of life, she reveals surprising findings, like that wearing makeup can actually relax you, that you can convince people you're better looking just by tweaking your personality, and the ways beauty can be a powerful tool of connection among women"--Amazon.com.
Download or read book Beauty written by Robin McKinley and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of Rose Daughter reimagines the classic French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. I was the youngest of three daughters. Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour. . . . My father still likes to tell the story of how I acquired my odd nickname: I had come to him for further information when I first discovered that our names meant something besides you-come-here. He succeeded in explaining grace and hope, but he had some difficulty trying to make the concept of honour understandable to a five-year-old. . . . I said: ‘Huh! I’d rather be Beauty.’ . . . By the time it was evident that I was going to let the family down by being plain, I’d been called Beauty for over six years. . . . I wasn’t really very fond of my given name, Honour, either . . . as if ‘honourable’ were the best that could be said of me. The sisters’ wealthy father loses all his money when his merchant fleet is drowned in a storm, and the family moves to a village far away. Then the old merchant hears what proves to be a false report that one of his ships had made it safe to harbor at last, and on his sad, disappointed way home again he becomes lost deep in the forest and has a terrifying encounter with a fierce Beast, who walks like a man and lives in a castle. The merchant’s life is forfeit, says the Beast, for trespass and the theft of a rose—but he will spare the old man’s life if he sends one of his daughters: “Your daughter would take no harm from me, nor from anything that lives in my lands.” When Beauty hears this story—for her father had picked the rose to bring to her—her sense of honor demands that she take up the Beast’s offer, for “cannot a Beast be tamed?” This “splendid story” by the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown has been named an ALA Notable Book and a Phoenix Award Honor Book (Publishers Weekly).
Download or read book Vapor written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by Carroll & Graf Publishers. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a surrealist romance, Damon, a madcap scientist, illegally holds Anna Graham prisoner in a cloud-filled house to discipline her into becoming a great actress, thus granting what he perceives to be her greatest desire in repayment for saving his life. Reprint.
Download or read book Walking in Beauty written by Phoenix LeFae and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2020-08-08 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Must-Have Guide to Embracing the Magnificence in Yourself and the World Using the pentacle as a magickal framework, this exhilarating book presents techniques and exercises that help you manifest joy, discover your inner and outer beauty, recognize blessings, and bring balance to your life. Phoenix LeFae presents a revolutionary approach based on the pentacle and the five points of beauty, devotion, desire, creativity, and expression. Walking in Beauty awakens you to the splendor of the world; it is both a meditation tool and a key to greater awareness. Through exercises, rituals, affirmations, and guerilla acts of kindness, this excellent guide shows you how to run the energy of the pentacle through your body and clear any blocks that keep you from living a fully engaged and beautiful life.
Download or read book The Beauty Myth written by Naomi Wolf and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."
Download or read book Nude Men written by Amanda Filipacchi and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internationally acclaimed debut of a novelist described by the New York Times Book Review as a “lovely comic surrealist”—a story of sex, love, and art found in the unlikeliest of places Jeremy Acidophilus is not really named after the yogurt culture—he just likes to tell people that he is. Actually, he thought of that line years ago but has never been brave enough to use it on someone—until he meets Lady Henrietta over a dish of green Jell-O in his new favorite coffee shop. A painter of naked men for Playgirl magazine who has taken her name from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Henrietta has the power to make Jeremy do all kinds of things he would not normally do, including disrobe for a stranger. He thinks that he must be falling in love. Think again, says Sara, the artist’s outrageously precocious eleven-year-old daughter as she sets out to seduce the new model. From the gray streets of Manhattan to the pastel kaleidoscope of Disney World, Jeremy’s journey of self-discovery is both irresistibly absurd and uncannily real. Everyone—from his cat Minou to a dancing magician named Laura to the agents hired by his mother to taunt him—has advice for Jeremy. Before he can hear any of it, though, he first needs to find out how to listen to himself. A witty and wild exploration of sexuality, creativity, and the paradoxes of self, Nude Men is the rare novel with the power to charm and shock in equal measure.
Download or read book Beauty s Kingdom written by A. N. Roquelaure and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the death of Queen Eleanor, Beauty and Laurent are implored to take the throne and uphold the ways of complete sensual surrender that have made Eleanor's realm a legend.
Download or read book How Far You Have Come written by Morgan Harper Nichols and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of the hurt and the mundane, the questions and the not yets, you can forget just how far you have come. This illustrated collection of poetry and essays invites you to reclaim moments of brokenness, division, and pain and re-envision them as experiences of reconciliation, unity, and hope. Popular Instagram poet and bestselling author Morgan Harper Nichols weaves together personal reflections through her signature poems, reflecting on the moments that shaped her. She invites you to: Awaken your heart and recognize how your own story has made you who you are today Enter into a deeper understanding of pressing on and pressing in, of transformation and surrender Discover meaning in the losses and embrace anticipation for the splendor ahead Become who you are in the moment you hold right now How Far You Have Come is an excellent gift for college and high school graduations, celebrations and anniversaries, life transitions, and birthdays or simply a gift for yourself. Follow Morgan on Instagram @morganharpernicols (along with her millions of followers), and look for more beautiful, thought-provoking poetry in her other collections: All Along You Were Blooming You Are Only Just Beginning
Download or read book Authentic Beauty written by Leslie Ludy and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside Every Young Woman is a Princess…In Search of her Prince In a culture that mocks our longing for tender romance, in a world where fairy tales never seem to come true — do we dare hope for more? For every young woman asking that question, this book is an invitation. With refreshing candor and vulnerability, bestselling author Leslie Ludy reveals how, starting today, you can experience the passion and intimacy you long for. You can begin a never-ending love story with your true Prince. Discover the authentic beauty of a life fully set-apart for Him. Experience a romance that will transform every part of your existence and fulfill the deepest longings of your feminine heart.
Download or read book An Inconvenient Beauty Hawthorne House Book 4 written by Kristi Ann Hunter and published by Bethany House. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-Winning Regency Romance Author on the Rise Griffith, Duke of Riverton, likes order, logic, and control, and he naturally applies this rational approach to his search for a bride. He's certain Miss Frederica St. Claire is the perfect wife for him, but while Frederica is strangely elusive, he can't seem to stop running into her stunningly beautiful cousin, Miss Isabella Breckenridge. Isabella should be enjoying her society debut, but with her family in difficult circumstances, her uncle will only help them if she'll use her beauty to assist him in his political aims. Already uncomfortable with this agreement, the more she comes to know Griffith, the more she wishes to be free of her unfortunate obligation. Will Griffith and Isabella be able to set aside their pride and face their fears in time to find their own happily-ever-after?
Download or read book Beautiful Children written by Charles Bock and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-01-22 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller by the author of the forthcoming novel Alice & Oliver | Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters | A New York Times Notable Book “One word: bravo.”—The New York Times Book Review “Truly powerful . . . Beautiful Children dazzles its readers on almost every page. . . . [Charles Bock] knows how to tug at your heart, and he knows how to make you laugh out loud, often on the same page, sometimes in the same sentence.”—Newsweek One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn’t come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son’s room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy’s father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving touch, any kind of intimacy. As the Ewings navigate the mystery of what’s become of their son, the circumstances surrounding Newell’s vanishing and other events on that same night reverberate through the lives of seemingly disconnected strangers: a comic book illustrator in town for a weekend of debauchery; a painfully shy and possibly disturbed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie scenes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a dangerous and scheming gutter punk; a band of misfit runaways. The people of Beautiful Children are “urban nomads,” each with a past to hide and a pain to nurture, every one of them searching for salvation and barreling toward destruction, weaving their way through a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the spinning wheels of chance. In this masterly debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor to capture Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance and to provide a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption heralding the arrival of a major new writer. Praise for Beautiful Children “Exceptional . . . This novel deserves to be read more than once because of the extraordinary importance of its subject matter.”—The Washington Post Book World “Magnificent . . . a hugely ambitious novel that succeeds . . . Beautiful Children manages to feel completely of its moment while remaining unaffected by literary trends. . . . Charles Bock is the real thing.”—The New Republic “A wildly satisfying and disturbing literary journey, led by an author of blazing talent.”—The Dallas Morning News “Wholly original—dirty, fast, and hypnotic. The sentences flicker and skip and whirl.”—Esquire “An anxious, angry, honest first novel filled with compassion and clarity . . . The language has a rhythm wholly its own—at moments it is stunning, near genius.”—A. M. Homes “From start to finish, Bock never stops tantalizing the reader.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Rich and compelling . . . captures the hallucinogenic setting like a fever dream.”—Los Angeles Times
Download or read book The Evolution of Beauty written by Richard O. Prum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.
