Just thought I’d share with you a few books that are on my  reading list for 2011…..

Mediterranean Summer – a chef spends a summer cooking aboard a yacht as it sails along France’s Cote d’Azur and Italy’s Costa Bella.

Murder in Passy and The Terra Cota Dog – murder mysteries that take place in Paris and Sicily respectively.

Giacomo Casanova History of My Life – this book is on my list because  I read the following passage in A Thousand Days of Magic by Oleg Cassini…I advised Jackie (Kennedy) to read the memoirs of Casanova for a detailed and brilliant description of life in the eighteenth century.  When I first suggested it, she said, “Oleg, are you kidding? Casanova was a rogue and an inveterate womanizer.” Oleg politely insisted.  Later Jackie wrote Oleg a thank you note that stated she loved the memoirs.

A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Colour of Desire - the title says it all.

One Hundred Years of Solitude – many consider this novel a masterpiece.  I’d like to read it and form my own opinion.

The Count of Monte Cristo – a grand and riveting tale of wrongful imprisonment, revenge, and redemption.

The Warmth of Other Suns – topped a few Best Book Lists for 2010, researched for 15 years, and written by a pulitzer prize winning journalist; chronicles the migration of African Americans from the South to the North and Midwest.

A Moveable Feast – Hemingway’s memoir of Paris in the 1920′s.

I would love to hear from you… Have you read any of these books?  Did you enjoy?  Would you recommend?

source: Photographer Tatijana Shoan for Malibu Magazine

Source: scanned by CGS

The flowing silk dress by Kevan Hall brings to mind beautiful crystal flutes filled with bubbly champagne. Sandals by Jimmy Choo. Photographed by Tatijana Shoan for Malibu Magazine August/September 2009.

Source: scanned by CGS