Almost weekend

Almost weekend. I am really looking forward to it. My plans?
Today some drinks with friends, maybe afterwords go out for dinner with them. On Sunday I am going with some girlfriends to Blue Jasmine, by Woody Allen. I have heard great reviews about it. Have you seen it yet?
But tomorrow, tomorrow I am going to do just absolutely everything and nothing... just enjoy my horse and dogs (walks and riding) and afterwords with a hot cup of tea, a blanket and a good book and just dream away!

A real book!

Dior

Assouline Publishing announced the release of a real collector's itme: a set of three historical books, "the Dior gift box".

It includes Dior Fashion - 80 pages of the history of haute couture, as embodied in clothing, haute couture; Dior Perfume - Perfume evolution of the fashion house, and Dior Fine Jewellery - the album is incredibly beautiful jewelry by Christian Dior.

Each photo shows a certain stage of development of the fashion house, but it's not just a story of one brand - the story itself is one of high fashion,given to us, year after year, by Dior. The world of sophistication and elegance, the expression of the French tradition of haute couture - and this kind of fashion is called an art.

The contribution of Christian Dior in the haute couture is difficult to overestimate. The pages of these three books, albums may find their inspiration artists, designers, musicians and actors, in fact, looking at them, you feel involved in the complex and incomprehensible, but very attractive world of high fashion.

The Gift Set is available @ Assouline.

The forgotten dialect of the heart

Just a man named Gatsby

I kind of read all the books I've got, so started reading one my oldtime classics from when I was in highschool. I've been captured by it from the first page ....

Big life foundation, by Nick Brandt

Typically I write and show you beautiful things that make me smile. But this is something we should all be aware of, told by one of my favorite photographers Nick Brandt:

Announcing BIG LIFE FOUNDATION

The captions beneath the next photographs explain it all 
(just double click the picture):

Part of me was reluctant to tell people that these elephants had been killed. You want to believe that these beautiful elephants are still wandering the African plains. But in a very short space of time, most of the large-tusked elephants featured in my books have been killed by poachers for their ivory.

Since 2008, there has been a huge increase in demand from China and the Far East for ivory, and as a result, elephants are being wiped out at an alarming rate. The numbers are apocalyptic : it’s estimated that as many as 35,000 elephants are being poached a year, 10% of the entire population of Africa's elephants each year alone.

And it’s not just elephants. The lions are being poisoned at an incredible rate too. It’s become so bad that there are next to no lions left outside the national parks. Giraffes are also being killed at a faster rate for bush meat. There are even contracts out on zebras, as their skins are the latest fad in Asia.

With increasing population, widespread cell-phone service, and ever-greater road access, it’s getting more and more easy for the poachers. As things currently stand, it is no longer a matter of if a big-tusked elephant is killed, but when.

The Kenya Wildlife Service is underfunded and understaffed. The rangers and scouts employed to patrol the Amboseli ecosystem are few and far between, despite the efforts of a few good, but also drastically underfunded, non-profit organizations in the area. And on the Tanzanian side, where most of the poachers come from, there is almost no-one to stop the wholesale slaughter.

I simply can no longer watch this escalation of destruction of this extraordinary ecosystem and its animals. The time has come to act. With that in mind, I have started my own non-profit organization, called Big Life Foundation.

Our first appeal is a broad-scale anti-poaching plan for the Amboseli ecosystem with the intention of moving boldly, urgently, to get the money into place as fast as possible to halt the poaching.

In early August, the Foundation was conceived with a complete, comprehensive plan of action in place. At the end of August, Richard Bonham, one of the most experienced and highly respected conservationists in East Africa, was hired as Big Life’s Director of Operations in Africa. In September, the first $230,000 was donated. Literally days later, the first three anti-poaching outposts along the border were being bought and built and more anti-poaching teams brought in. A top training instructor for the all the scouts and rangers in the region has been hired. More equipment bought. Landcruisers for the mobile anti-poaching teams are on order.

It’s a great start, and we are already making a difference. But we need to do so much more and can only do so with more donations. We are operating with an urgency because we know that we don’t have time to wait. Within the last few weeks, several of Amboseli’s most amazing bulls have been killed. And those are just the ones that we know about. Every day, without exaggeration, it is getting worse.

We’re hoping that we get the poaching under control in Amboseli as fast as we can, and then start approaching the issues long term, and further afield across East Africa. There is so much to be done to protect some of Africa's most magnificent wild animals from being all but wiped out in the near future.

To learn about what we are already doing, 
and what we are going to be doing, 

please visit our website :

http://www.biglifeafrica.org/

Thanks for your time, and any donations that you can make.

Nick Brandt

 

Look at these beautiful animals .... and take a minute to think about what Nick has just told you.

 

http://www.biglifeafrica.org/

The Secret of Happiness

Thing is ... I've read it, twice ... three, maybe four times, but yesterday I couldn't sleep and so I started reading this little book again. Everytime it's an amazing story and it hits you right in the face - again -

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

With considerable patience, the Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”

The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.

“So,” asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room? Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.

“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” asked the sage.

Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.

“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,” said the sage of sages. “The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”

from the book “The Alchemist” , by Paulo Coelho

Go The F**K To Sleep

Hahaha just really funny bedtime story. I've been hearing about this book for some weeks now and just found this great read by Samual L. Jackson - It's really funny .... I don't know if it's an appropriate childrens bedtime story, but it sure is a great one for adults ;)!

A magical secret in New York

CH Presents: The Conjuring Arts Research Center from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

Nestled in a hidden location in midtown Manhattan, the Counjuring Arts Research Center is ground zero for illusionists and historians alike. The Center provides a range of services, publishes scholarly journals, and teaches hospital-bound kids magic through its Hocus Pocus program. It is perhaps best known as home to one of the largest known collections of historic books, letters, and other media, which the center makes available online.

Bill Kalush, the center's founder and director, explains how he built the collection piece-by-piece and shows us some of its highlights.

Parisian Chic: A Style Guide by Ines de la Fressange

I just ordered my " must have spring read" ....

The Eiffel Tower, crepes, navy blue, and those girls who seem like they could walk in heels all day. French model and Roger Vivier muse Ines de la Fressange captures the essence of Parisian style in her fashionable new tome, Parisian Chic: A Style Guide by Ines de la Fressange.

The book touches on everything from common beauty faux pas’ to de la Fressange’s seven wardrobe essentials (blazer, trench, navy sweater, tank, little black dress, jeans, leather jacket) modeled by none other than her daughter Nine D’Urso. (Nine may look familiar; she was featured in Teen Vogue back in 2009!)

Beyond style standards, the guide recommends where to shop for each item, whether online or in Paris. In the final section, “Ines’s Paris,” de la Fressange identifies her favorite Parisian escapes, including tucked away museums, cafes, and hotels.

 

 

Interested, you can buy it at Colette's online shop

Water for Elephants

As a little girl I wanted to join the circus :) I didn't, but I guess that old desire was the reason I read the book Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and now I just can't wait to see Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson play in the movie. It will be in the theaters in a couple of weeks. Just to give you a preview check out the trailer.

And don't you just love these pictures with Reese?

pictures by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue (May issue)

pictures by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue (May issue)

pictures by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue (May issue)

If you don't want to know the plot, DON'T read on.....

The story is told as a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a "ninety or ninety-three year-old" man who lives in a nursing home. Jacob is told what to eat and what to do.

As the memories begin, Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three years old and preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the news that his parents were killed in a car accident. Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. When Jacob learns that his father was deeply in debt because he had been treating animals for free as well as mortgaging the family home to provide Jacob an Ivy League education, he has a breakdown and leaves school just short of graduation. In the dark of night, he jumps on a train only to learn it is a circus train. When the owner of the circus, Uncle Al, learns of his training as a vet, he is hired to care for the circus animals. This consequently leads Jacob to share quarters with a dwarf named Walter (who is known as Kinko to the circus) and his dog Queenie. A few weeks later Jacob is summoned to take a look at Camel, an old man who, after drinking Jamaican ginger extract for many years, can't move his arms or legs. Fearing Camel will be "redlighted" (referring to the practice of throwing circus workers off a moving train as either punishment or as severance from the circus to avoid paying wages),[3] he hides him in his room.

The head trainer, August, is a brutal man who abuses the animals in his care (such as the new elephant Rosie) as well as the people around him. Alternately, he can be utterly charming. Jacob develops a guarded relationship with August and his wife, Marlena, with whom Jacob falls in love. August is suspicious of their relationship and beats Marlena and Jacob. Marlena subsequently leaves August and stays at a hotel while she's not performing. Uncle Al then informs Jacob that August is a paranoid schizophrenic and then gives him a threat: reunite August and Marlena as a happily married couple or Walter and Camel get redlighted.

A few days later after discovering that August has tried to see Marlena, Jacob visits her in her hotel room. Soon after comforting her however, Jacob and Marlena sleep together and then eventually declare their love for each other. Marlena soon returns to the circus to perform (and also to have secret meetings with Jacob), but refuses to have August near her, which makes Uncle Al extremely mad. Days later Marlena informs Jacob that she is pregnant.

One night Jacob climbs up and jumps each car, while the train is moving, to August's room, carrying a knife between his teeth intending to kill August. However, Jacob backs out and returns to his car, only to find no one there but Queenie. He then realizes that Walter and Camel were redlighted and Jacob himself was supposed to be too.

As the story climaxes, several circus workers who were redlighted off the train come back and release the animals causing a stampede during the performance.

In the ensuing panic, August is killed by Rosie the elephant, and the only one who sees the incident is Jacob. As a result of this incident, which occurred during a circus performance, the circus is shut down. Soon after, Uncle Al's body is found with a makeshift garrote around his neck. Marlena and Jacob leave, along with several circus animals (Rosie, Queenie and others), and begin their life together.

Ninety-three year old Jacob is waiting for his family to take him to the circus. It is uncovered that Jacob and Marlena married and had 5 children spending the first 7 years at another circus before Jacob gets a job as a vet for the zoo. Marlena is revealed to have died a few years before Jacob was put into a nursing home. After finding out no one is coming for him, elderly Jacob goes to the circus on his own. He soon meets the manager Charlie and begs him to accompany the circus by selling tickets. Charlie agrees and Jacob believes he has finally come home.

Why French Women Don’t Get Fat?

French women eat two warm meals a day, drink lots of wine and eat bread and cheese. How is it possible that they can eat whatever they want, but still stay slim? It’s a question I have been asking myself for years, but apparently I am not the only one because Mireille Guiliano did the same. She not only got the answer but also made a cookbook about it chock full with tasty recipes. And has a style of writing that is so inviting, it makes you feel as though she’s a close friend dropping by for a visit.

According to Mireille the secret is simple: enjoy eating, taste what you eat, use good ingredients and don’t be too strict on yourself.... So bring on the chocolate and champagne!!
In this book you read about the how and why behind the secret and solution, but above all it’s loaded with real tasty recipe’s, great tips, tidbits and quotes.

Want to read more... Mireille Guiliano not only wrote French Women Don’t Get Fat, but is also the bestselling author of French Women For All Seasons, and Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire.

P.s. it's also available in Dutch @ bol.com

Christmas book gifts

Here are some of the books on my wishlist, maybe you'll like them as well?

The End of the Game, by Peter Beard.

Beard lived in Kenya in the 1960s, bought land next to his friend Isak Dinesen (who wrote the memoir Out of Africa) and wrote and photographed wildlife, especially elephants. A fashion photographer (he discovered Iman in Africa), as well as a writer and visual artist, Beard takes his readers on a safari without leaving home.

Focusing on the widespread destruction of the African elephant, in 'The End of the Game' Beard tells of the enterprisers, explorers, missionaries, and big-game hunters whose quests for progress and adventure were to change the face of Africa for ever.

These include Theodore Roosevelt; Ernest Hemingway; Denys Finch-Hatton, the romantic hero of Out of Africa; legendary game warden J.A.Hunter; and railway engineer J.H.Patterson, who became famous as the pursuer of the "Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo." The End of the Game is a classic work, one that explores the intricate and complex relationship between man and animals and how both struggle to adapt to their changing environments. It is not always a happy story. But it is an important one. The End of the Game is not a book you will soon forget.

It is too late to undo what has been done.

The laws of inevitability which have ruled Africa for millions of years must now be accepted by Africa's conquerors. To understand this is to begin to realize that we have conquered nothing at all. Man and his ways have intruded with little regard for Africa's customs and privacy. She has been pursued and despoiled. The End of the Game tells part of this story because it deals with the essence of African life, the animal. And with that very license of humanity by which we have presumed to conquer, we are challenged to reflect upon our defeat.

"The ruined wood we used to know won't cry for retribution - the men who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge "

- William Faulkner -

Take Ivy by Powerhouse Books

The first American printing of the seminal Japanese book, which captured 60's Ivy League style long before it went mass market.

Baked Explorations

The Red Hook, Brooklyn bakery's claim to fame may be its brownie (Oprah's favorite), but every recipe in the book (from caramel apple cake to chocolate salt to pepper sandwich cookies) turns out perfectly—and the lush photos are enough to give you a toothache.

Jean-Michel Basquiat by Glenn O'Brien

Constantly referenced by artists and designers alike, Jean-Michel Basquiat—the dreadlocked graffiti artist who died in 1988—left an indelible mark in just 27 too-short years. This book (by, among others, GQ Style Guy Glenn O'Brien) celebrates Basquiat's legacy, with works, essays, and commentary by those who knew the artist.

Kate Moss by Mario Testino

A behemoth collection dedicated to the willowy supermodel that might weigh more than she does.

Not really a book, but a subscription :) Anthology Magazine, a cool new shelter mag founded by two Bay Area design obsessives.

Juliet, Anne Fortier

Began to read yesterday late afternoon and could not lay the book down. Finished it late last night ..... and love it!

The official trailer of the book:


But this German trailer gives a better feeling of the book.

Chocolat, Joanne Harris

This afternoon I started reading the book Chocolat, by Joanne Harris (I haven't seen the movie yet) and I just finished it .... Does that say enough? I was captured by Vianne, her magic and how she loses herself in making her delicious creations, describing each confection so lovingly. Harris’ power of description is intoxicating.

About the book:
Chocolat begins with the arrival in a tiny French village of Vianne Rocher, a single mother with a young daughter, on Shrove Tuesday. As the inhabitants of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes clear away the remains of the carnival which heralds the beginning of Lent, Vianne moves with her daughter into a disused bakery facing the church, where Francis Reynaud, the young and opinionated curé of the parish, watches her arrival with disapproval and suspicion. When he realizes that Vianne intends to open a chocolate shop in place of the old bakery, thereby tempting the churchgoers to over-indulgence, Reynaud's disapproval increases. As it becomes clear that the villagers of Lansquenet are falling under the spell of Vianne's easy ways and unorthodox opinions, to the detriment of his own authority, he is quick to see her as a danger. Under Vianne's influence an old woman embraces a new life, a battered wife finds the courage to leave her husband, children rebel against authority, outcasts and strays are welcomed... and Reynaud's tight and carefully ordered community is in danger of breaking apart.

As Easter approaches, both parties throw themselves whole-heartedly into the preparations; Vianne for the chocolate festival she plans to hold on Easter Sunday, Reynaud into a desperate attempt to win back his straying flock. Both factions have a great deal at stake; the village is bitterly divided; and as the big day looms closer their struggle becomes much more than a conflict between church and chocolate - it becomes an exorcism of the past, a declaration of independence, a showdown between dogma and understanding, pleasure and self-denial.

P.s. can't wait to see the movie with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche

The exceptional life of Anna Boom, Judith Koelemeijer

In an interview in a magazine with the writer of this book, Judith Koelemeijer, I got struck by the true story of Anna's life. Anna Boom is a biography written in a such a vivid way... you get sucked in to the book straight away. Anna is still alive, living in Holland, is in her 90's and she flies every couple of weeks to Africa to help people in need, by helping to provide in their basic needs of living.

In the summer of 1942 Anna get's on a train to Budapest. She is off to go to Geza, a Hungarian man a lot older, whith whom she is in love. Until this day, the Dutch Anna had lived with her mother in foreign pensions, in an isolated world. Now she breaks free, even though there is war going on and her Hungarian has been married for years.

The trip marks the beginning of an exceptional life.... In Budapest Anna get's in contact with the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Among others she helps Jews with protection and food.

After the war she decides to try and forget everything. This takes her to follow a French Envoy to Prague, leave the boat to Bombay with a Swiss engineer she marries and at the age of 48 she finally finds her home and peace with the Dutch KLM Director in Estoril. During this time she never speaks a word about her past in Budapest. Until one night the silence is terminated unexpectedly.

Anna Boom is the true story of a woman with many faces and leaves you in wonder about the amount of energy, desire to live life to the fullest and all the adventures in Anna's life.

Especially when you enjoy reading books about "real" people, strong women, or are interested in WOII... you will love Anna Boom.

Eat, Pray, Love

I just finished reading "Eat, Pray, Love" Elizabeth Gilbert’s fourth and latest book – a #1 best selling memoir about the year she spent traveling around the world in search of personal restoration after a difficult divorce. It is a very easy, enjoyable and entertaining read, with a lot of humour and self-deprecation and for sure I can recommend it :)


Actually the review of the book by Anne Lamott says it all:
"This is a wonderful book, brilliant and personal, rich in spiritual insight, filled with sorrow and a great sense of humour. Elizabeth Gilbert is everything you would love in a tour guide, of magical places she has traveled to both deep inside and across the oceans: she's wise, jaunty, human, ethereal, hilarious, heartbreaking, and God, does she pay great attention to the things that really matter."