Books

Books to Gift This Season

December 12, 2017 By kimwheeler 8 Comments

How is your December shaping up? The past week was taken up with my Griffin turning 16 and getting his driver’s license, which I can hardly believe, and Jackson coming home from college. A lot of fun, but naturally I’m behind on posting and shopping. I’m trying hard not to over-buy this year, avoid the mall, shop small in town, and bought online when I could. I have more shopping ideas coming soon, and today is about my favorite thing to get and give- books!

With few ACTUAL bookstores left, it is sometimes hard to browse, so I love hearing book recommendations. I made some here and would love if you would also share any you found this year or have gifted before that are winners. You’ll notice there are few novels as I find those a very personal choice, and harder to buy for gifts. Let me know what you think. In the meantime I’m working on cards, cookies and shopping still..

From Napa With Love is a fun guide and read that takes one to the less traveled and cooler spots in Napa. I really enjoyed seeing how Napa folks and summer residents like Kate and Andy Spade, live and what they like to do while there. Great for anyone planning a trip or who loves this part of California.

What Unites Us is what we need to hear with so much divisiveness. Dan Rather makes the case that, ‘Patriotism is rooted in humility and nationalism is rooted in arrogance.’ Dan is someone I greatly admire for speaking his mind and being a voice of reason during this tumultuous time in America.

One of my favorite new books is How They Decorated. A great look back a tastemakers of the past decades and how they designed their homes and lives. I appreciate this book in an era of Pinterest and the homogenization of home design. If you’re over the barn doors, shiplap and all that this book is for you.

If you like reading about how creative people live at home, The Authentics is a gem. Beautiful photos and interviews.

Remodelista The Organized Home is perfect for those who are into simplifying and committed to living better with less. Great ideas on how to eliminate plastic from your home, store less stuff and use what you have to live simply and beautifully.

Gardenista is a wonderful tour of some of the most inspirational and beautiful gardens and yards and how they were created. I’m using this as my guide in redoing my yard next year. It makes a beautiful book for the coffee table as well for the garden lover.

If your ready to up your cookie game check out Holiday Cookies, a beautiful book with excellent recipes, tips and some pretty ideas for packaging and decorating.

I love this new Betty Crocker Lost Recipes book. Not only are the recipes vintage, but the tips are culled from all the best books of the past. These little nuggets of wisdom give charm to this adorable book. Really fun to look back by decade and see what was popular and the mindset of those times!

Do you have a creative friend or someone who sews or wants to learn? Want to stop buying what everyone else does and live a little greener? I appreciate everything about Everyday Style and it’s chic ideas for making your own unique capsule wardrobe and totes.

In a slump? Got a friend going through some life changes? You are a Badass is seriously motivating. This book gets you off your butt and out of your own way to make the life you want happen. Just picking it up and re-reading a chapter now and then changes the way you think.

Got an 8-13 year old? I really like the positive messages about being different and powerful in Strong is the New Pretty .

Any science nerd teens or adults? My 19 year old highly recommends What If? which was written by the creator of the highly popular xkcd.com science comic website.

Atlas Obscura is another cool book for curious teens or adults who are interested in the world and travel. Great photos and stories of amazing marvels to get to one day. I plan on getting this for my geography loving kid this year.

I bought The Genius of Birds last year for my bird loving husband. In the year past I have heard so much about this book and the crazy intelligence of birds, I plan to read it over holiday break.

Hero of the Empire is a bio that reads like a thriller and details the heroism of young Winston Churchill in South Africa during the Boer War years. I love anything on Churchill and history buffs will appreciate this war that is relatively unknown to many Americans.

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Friday Book Chat- Audrey at Home

February 6, 2016 By kimwheeler 16 Comments

I love everything about this week’s book, Audrey at Home. I’ve had this book for a while and have been savoring it.

Audrey Hepburn was my mother’s favorite so from an early age I was very familiar with everything Audrey. Long before there were VCRs and cable television, mom and I would spend Saturdays on the couch watching afternoon specials of her movies. By time I was ten Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday, Sabrina and Wait Until Dark (mom claimed it was her best role), were my favorite films. My mom even looked like Audrey and had the same hair styles and big glasses. That may have been on purpose now I think. My mom also loved Audrey’s elegance and unique style. This book really had me thinking so much of my lovely mom who will be gone a year next week. I only wish I could have gotten her this book. I know how much she would have loved it.

After Audrey had her boys she rarely did movies, but I did have a chance encounter with her when I was in college…

One day, in the late 1980s, I found myself in Beverly Hills on a road trip with a boyfriend and decided to get a manicure at the Elizabeth Arden salon for fun. It was $16- pretty steep for me then, but I splurged. The salon was buzzing with chatter and ladies under dryers and such. While I waited for my polish to dry I heard a very familiar voice out of the corner of the room. It was so familiar in fact, I thought it must be the television. I turned to see it was an elegant lady, also getting her nails done and yes it was Audrey Hepburn. My heart started racing and I thought I was going to faint.

She was talking about an upcoming movie she was doing and they were showing her clothes or nightgowns and she’d say. ‘Oh maybe years ago darling not anymore,’ about some of the selections. (I think the movie was with Robert Wagner called Love Among Thieves, one of her last.) She was pretty and tiny and funny -just as she was in the movies. I could hardly breathe. I wanted to run up and tell her how much I loved her and how my mom did especially. In the end, she was moved to another room to finish up and I never did. She did flash a smile my way before she went. I flew out of there and straight to a payphone to call my mom. She was unbelieving at first and then mad it was me not her to see our Audrey. Today, I still cannot believe it happened. The best $16 I ever spent.

This book is a joy. I just loved it. I just soaked it in. I have many Audrey books, but this is a glimpse into her real life as a mom and wife. Her son Luca Dotti has done a great job conveying what a special spirit his mother was. The personal photos and anecdotes that go along with the 50 recipes make this so much more than a cookbook.

Audrey’s greatest joys were home, family, her pets and her garden. As a child of World War II who nearly starved in Nazi occupied Holland, she never took anything for granted. She reveled in creating a home for her sons and being with her close lifelong friends.

The recipes are uncomplicated and the kind of comfort food one masters and adds to a repertoire of a life’s favorite dishes. Vichyssoise, soups, pesto pasta, sea bass in paper, and chocolate cake are just a few of the simple and delicious from her collection. Audrey’s favorite though was Penne with Ketchup, which is better than it sounds, followed by a dish of vanilla ice cream. She loved staying in and eating pasta curled up on the couch with television, her family and dear dogs. Makes me want to do more of that in my life!

Some of the personal photos from this book…

The cover of the book is wrapped with a painting Audrey did of her garden in Switzerland. This is a beautiful book for your kitchen and already I am loving the soups, dressing and pastas that are so easy and fresh. This book is a guide to the sweet life you can create by surrounding yourself with the uncomplicated joys of good food, friends, family and pets. What more does one need?

Charm, kindness and gratitude are what made Audrey one of a kind and I enjoyed reading how she carried that with her throughout life.

We could all use a little more Audrey style, no?

Luca Dotti has written another more photographic centered book called Audrey in Rome about his mother’s time in the eternal city and her other son Sean Ferrer has also written a sweet book called Audrey Hepburn, an Elegant Spirit, which is also beautifully done. She must have been a wonderful mama to those boys for both to have written books about her.

Happy weekend friends!

Friday Book Chat- Eating on the Wild Side

January 29, 2016 By kimwheeler 21 Comments

Happy Friday! I’ve decided to try to use Fridays as a day to talk about some of the best new books. There are so many I want to share so we will see if this can be a little forum for some of the better offerings and have recommendations from you readers too.

I’ve had this book on my nightstand for a while and been meaning to write about how fantastic it is. I don’t know about you, but eating better is always one of my goals in a new year and reading this book motivated me to make better choices for the family and in what I personally put in my body as well.

Think you’re eating well because your diet is filled with vegetables? Well think again! Did you know that the preparation and varietal makes a huge difference in the nutrition? I had no idea that some vegetables are lacking almost all their benefits by time they get to the supermarket shelf!

Eating on the Wild Side is an eye-opener and author Jo Robinson has done a great job with her in-depth research and history. You will learn so much about getting the maximum antioxidants and cancer-fighting advantages out of your veg and fruits.

Some of the tips I loved..Letting your garlic rest after chopping for just 10 minutes before cooking retains all it’s cancer-fighting benefits, but if you don’t wait you lose all of them in cooking. Carrots should be bought fresh and with their tops on. The very popular baby carrots can be months old and carrots are one of those vegetables that do not retain nutrients when frozen, and you can get eight times more beta-carotene by cooking a carrot than eating it fresh.

Like our grandmothers said, the skin is often the most nutritious part of vegetables and fruit and why one needs to buy organic. Those pesticides do not rinse off. Buying local is not just good for the earth, but by buying from farmer’s markets your fruits and vegetables will likely be picked the day before as opposed to stores who often sell things kept in refrigeration for weeks. The problem is many vegetables like broccoli lose almost all it’s nutrition waiting on the store shelf.

After reading this you’ll know the best way to retain nutrients, antioxidants and keep your produce fresh. There’s a shopping guide at the end of each chapter that tells you what varietals to grow and buy that have the most health benefits. The history of some of these plants is fascinating too..How they became cultivated and chosen over others makes it an interesting read.

When buying you want to looks for fruits and vegetables that have more exposure to the sun and hence more antioxidants. So choosing a baby lettuce over a romaine whose leaves are enclosed is much more desirable. Darker tends to be better for you, but in some cases like peaches and nectarines, the white ones, less propagated have much more nutrition. Chose less cultivated and more wild varietals when possible, from local sources or your own garden for your health. To top it off, there are also some yummy recipes dotted throughout this book I really liked.

Has anyone else read this? I think it’s the best food book since The Omnivore’s Dilemma which was eye-opening as well. Any other similar books you love? I find they really motivate me to commit to better eating.

Have a healthy weekend. Getting to the farmer’s market is on my list!

Kim

Photos Northerncalstyle

Home Glamour -The Elements of Style Book

September 1, 2015 By kimwheeler 14 Comments

Now that the kids are back in school I finally have some bigger chunks of time to actually work on things I’ve been meaning to get to. One of them is the house. Seems I always have plans to paint, update and purge things we really don’t need anymore. In short, a lot to do! One thing that never fails to gets me inspired is home books and my latest favorite is this beauty…

Elements of Style- Designing A Home & A Life, by Erin Gates is filled with pretty photos and ideas that will get you motivated to brighten and modernize. I don’t know about you, but now that I am finally have a chance to step back and look at the house, I realize there is so much we don’t need and a lot of pieces we have just taken on from family, and also dragged with us from other homes. Some things that worked great in our other home never really worked here, but we kept anyway. I added a few new things when we moved here 5 years ago, then we went through our start-up years and we didn’t do much else after that. Now that we once again are to add some home upgrades, I want to focus on getting our home the way I really would like it. Up to it’s potential is how I like to think of it…

Erin’s book, like her amazing blog, which you have to visit, is like a breath of fresh decorating air. She has great practical ideas, but a modern sensibility which I really like. Throughout the chapters Erin weaves little bits of her life story which makes her so likable and relatable. She comes off as a someone who wants to share her knowledge, but also someone you’d love to have a glass of wine with! So far, thanks to Erin and her book, I’ve added two new pieces to the home…

This wool HomeGoods rug which is modern looking with it’s geometric pattern. It makes the family room look a tiny bit hipper with our white couches, leather accents, oversized denim pillows and grey accents.

Please ignore the cat. They tend to crush the tops of the couches into their personal dugouts!

The other purchase, very radical for me, was this acrylic table!

I have to say I am in total love with this piece right now! I knew I wanted it as soon as I saw it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to use it as a bar, a vanity table or a desk, but I placed it in the entry while moving it in and it just fit there! It makes the entry look chic, especially with the addition of the gold frames, which I am still filling and the bit of driftwood. Acrylic (or lucite -same thing) makes rooms feel larger and more open as it takes up no visual space. It’s also bright, light reflecting and feels glamorous. I need more glamour in this house!

The drawback to adding these modern pieces, is that everything else may look a bit staid. I’m not advocating for everything new. That’s not me, I appreciate things with provenance and I don’t believe you need to change your your whole home, but you need to edit and refresh occasionally. Adding something like my table may be the impetus you need to do this. Your home can become bland if you are keeping tired accessories and photos in the same frames they have been in for 10 years. Save what you adore, but mix it up, add some color, move the furniture, and perhaps get rid of a few things!

Also on my home to do this for fall is add some turquoise and teal to my living room. I have always loved that color and I am inspired by my grandma who has been a lifelong lover of it. She had a home designed around it in the 1950s and a wardrobe filled with it. Cleaning out her home, as we have been doing over the past months, I am encouraged to be more bold with colors! I think gold accessories add that bit of glam and I am changing a few of my frames out to gold and adding a vintage gold cat to the mix from my grandmother’s mid-century home. The gold is a nice foil to the deep aqua blues and the acrylic.

I hope to get rid of some couches, chairs and old tables I’ve been hanging onto. It feels like we have too much furniture and I want a more open feel in my rooms. I might just go without for a bit and see how the space feels. Whatever gets added I want to love. Wallpaper is another energizing and refreshing look Erin Gates uses a lot and I plan to take the plunge and wallpaper my entry and possibly my small dining area. Why not? I’m hitting 50 this month and feel like if I don’t have fun and do these things now I never will, you know?

Do you change your home up often or do you tend to live with things the same for a long time? You might try experimenting. Check out Erin’s terrific book and her Elements of Style blog for daily inspiration! She’s a funny writer as well as a talented designer. Adore her. Here’s a few of my favorite images from her book below…

Right now Erin is also curating a sale at the home decor site Joss & Main. Her sale goes on until September 6th. You can see more rooms she has done and some super little pieces she has picked for the sale there.

Kim

P.S. If you are interested in finding a lucite or acrylic table like mine, I found this one on CB2. The size is closest to mine and the price isn’t bad. They can run upwards to the $900s so you have to shop around. I was lucky to get mine at HomeGoods, but haven’t seen them since. Look for something thick and sturdy. It should weigh a bit too.

photos Elements of Style book and my own.

How To Raise An Adult: The Parenting Book We All Need

August 13, 2015 By kimwheeler No Comments

I just finished this book and I found a few weeks ago at my favorite bookstore Keplers. I couldn’t wait to share it here and it’s the perfect timing for it.

It’s back-to-school time and for so many kids and parents it’s back to stress, strain and pressure that accompanies life in the overachieving Bay Area and many other parts of the country. Do you want to raise kids that will get into Stanford or kids that are happy? Most of us would say happy, but are we walking the walk? With a college entrance system that is horribly broken, high schoolers jumping in front of trains, and parents who spend their days cultivating perfect people, we need to all take a step back. Thankfully some reason and common sense has entered the fray in the form of this brilliant book:

Written by the former dean of freshman at Stanford, How to Raise An Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, is the book we need now. During her time at Stanford, Julie Lythcott-Haims observed each successive freshman class coming in more dependent on parents and unable to cope without without consulting them, often many times daily thanks to a culture of overparenting. She says our job is not to get our kids into a prestigious school, but raise adults who can be self-reliant.

I could have used this wisdom years ago. As the parent of an incoming senior I cannot tell you how much I’ve worried, fretted and finally had to jump off the crazy train that accompanies high school college prep. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes though in communities like ours. Parents can quickly feel they need to do what everyone else is doing or their kid may get left behind and it’ll be all our fault for not doing ,’enough.’ This book says forget that.

Filling children’s days with sports, then select team sports, lessons, and tutoring in a ‘checklisted childhood,’ as she so rightly calls it, is doing children and ourselves no good and only raising kids with anxiety and unhappiness. Lythcott-Haims calls this the raising of ‘bonsai trees vs. wildflowers.’ This cultivation of children sends the message that only grades and achievement matter and free time needs to be filled with mastering things. It’s creating young adults who are unable to think for themselves, know themselves and find happiness or success later in life.

Lythcott-Haims says what they need is real life. Kids need some adversity. They need freedom and free-ranging. They need time to daydream. They need failure and they need struggle. Taking this all away and smoothing the path leads to kids who can’t cope with life’s curve balls.

It’s scary navigating the messed up college entrance system and this book has much enlightening and good thought here as well. It’s especially helpful to get high schoolers thinking about the OTHER wonderful school out there, and not aiming for the name brand ones, rather the right one for them.

Parents need to realize the path to a happy life is not perfect grades, an elite college and landing a prestigious job. The most satisfied people may be those who get there via a more crooked path, and are able to enjoy and learn from the journey. This book will help you keep your sanity and your perspective in an age of competitive parenting.

Thanks Julia Lythcott-Haims for this message and inspiring book. Let’s keep this mind-set going. Please share this book with others!

Kim