from http://breakingnews.iol.ie:

Sarah Jessica Parker will have a quiet New Year’s Eve with her family.

The ‘Sex and the City’ actress – who plays glamorous newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the hit US TV show and movie – plans to shun her Hollywood lifestyle and will spend the night indoors with her husband Matthew Broderick and their three children.

She said: “What am I doing for New Year’s Eve? I’ll be spending it with my husband and my family.”

The 44-year-old actress – who has son James Wilkie, seven, and six-month-old twin daughters Marion Loretta and Tabitha Hodge with Matthew -has had an eventful year.

As well as filming the second ‘Sex and the City’ movie, she and Matthew welcomed their new twin daughters through a surrogate mother into the world on June 22.

Image by yuan2003 via Flickr

Found at http://www.hubculture.com/groups/hubnews/news/439 (through Graham Hill)

The Emerging Collaboration Economy

Hub Culture founder Stan Stalnaker shares his thoughts in a Q&A with Rachel Botsman on sharing, the power of the commons, and peer-to-peer transaction.

Rachel Botsman is co-authoring a book with Roo Rogers entitled What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (being published by Harper Collins in 2010).

The book is about how people are collaborating together through organized sharing, bartering, trading, renting, swapping and collectives to get the same pleasures of ownership with reduced personal cost and burden — and lower environmental impact.

RB: We look at how look how social networks and web technologies are giving new relevance to pre-industrial behaviors such as bartering, swapping, trading, social lending etc. that require marketplace structures. Essentially how we are going back to ‘human to human transactions’ between producer and consumer, seller and buyer, borrower and lender, neighbor to neighbor etc.  What are your thoughts on this? What are your favorite examples of this in action?

To be continued at http://www.hubculture.com/groups/hubnews/news/439

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http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b159363_rate-a-trailer_sex_city_2_girls_just.html

http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/12/23/sex-and-the-city-2-trailer/

http://www.examiner.com/x-18646-Spokane-Movie-Examiner~y2009m12d25-First-Sex-and-the-City-2-trailer-released-for-Sex-and-the-City-fans

I don’t think that for a Christmas read you could do better than a title ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’ especially when it’s followed by the tag line ‘and a selection of Entrée’s’ the fact it is written by Agatha Christie only adds to its appeal and charm. It was also slightly ironic that after cooking a huge, and rather lovely, Christmas dinner the pudding was the problem. More on that some other time as really this is a post about a rather marvellous Christmas read, rather than my shoddy pudding debacle.

I had never heard of the regular event in publishing called the ‘Christmas Christie’ until I read the wonderful ‘Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks’ by John Curran earlier in the year but indeed she did write many. Naturally hankering for some perfect Christmas this book with its fabulous title had to be high up on my list. What could be better than some murder under the mistletoe whilst munching on chocolates and mulled wine?

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding is actually a collection of some of Agatha Christie’s short stories. Five of them are tales of Poirot ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’, ‘The Underdog’, ‘Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds’, ‘The Dream’ and the title tale itself. The last one ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ stars Miss Marple, my favourite Christie character, herself. The title tale is indeed very Christmas filled and is murder meets great theft containing three brilliant plot twists within 60 pages which I think is remarkable. ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’ had be baffled as to how six guests could eat dinner with one of their spouses murdered in a chest in the same room, again so, so clever. ‘The Underdog’ is a very interesting tale of women’s intuition and how having it cannot prove a thing, even if it might (note I say might not it is) be right.

The latter three were interesting clever, highly readable and slightly annoying in one. As though it was very interesting to see Christie use one specific plot device (which I cant say or you wont need to read them and they are charming) and change it so much in three ways I did feel it was a shame to have them be the last three tales as it could have been mixed up more. It did show what a genius of murderous mayhem she could be and how many ways one thing could be reworked; I would have just placed a few different methods in between. It’s a small critique though as I didn’t guess any of the endings in any of these three and they all kept me reading until the small hours of this very Boxing Day. All in all it was a truly delightful classic Christmas Christie collection (loving that alliteration) and I couldn’t have asked for more.

How were all your Christmases, did you all have a delightful day? I do hope so, do report back please with your Xmas tales. I had a marvellous day, bar the Christmas pudding nightmare (don’t ask). Dinner was a delight and I had wonderful presents but oddly only one book, though I do know another has been ordered. Apparently I am a nightmare to book buy for, as if. I mean really that’s so untrue.

Isn’t it interesting that though I love Christmas Day it is actually Boxing Day that’s my favourite since I started hosting Christmas myself? I think because everything is done and we now simply have those delicious parsnip and turkey sandwiches, left over chocolates and wine etc and can all relax from the hype. It is also tradition that we go to the cinema on Boxing Day which I love. Tonight we are off to see a film with a bookish twist that shaped my reading in a rather major way. I shall be discussing it in more detail tomorrow. I wonder if you can guess, its quite elementary my dears…

Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley.

Published May 2009 by McClelland and Stewart.

ISBN: 978-0771017322

The Recommend:

A loving and heart-rending memoir about what it was like to grow up with two larger than life parents, the distinguished conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Vancouver-born Manhattan socialite Patricia Taylor Buckley.

It is smart, witty, charming, and sometimes frank.

*

*

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon.

Published September 2009 by Harper Collins

ISBN: 978-1554682058

The Recommend:

Chabon investigates what it is to be a man, a son, brother, father, and husband, in a series of essays that make up a marvelous collection of insight, humour, pathos, and memory.

*

*

*

Not Yet by Wayson Choy

Published May 2009 by Doubleday Canada

ISBN: 978-0385663106

The Recommend:

Choy discusses being suspended into half-consciousness after being induced into a coma after suffering from a near-fatal heart attack.

It’s a pensive journey to his past, through the ghosts that haunt him, and to the reality of his life with people around him who care.

It’s a book about love, really.

*

About Joeseph Planta

*

Joseph Planta is editor at thecommentary.ca where he features audio interviews with unique and diverse guests from renowned bestselling and prize winning authors, Canadian newsmakers and political figures, internationally known print and broadcast journalists, prominent academics and public intellectuals, as well as noted artists and personalities.

For over 450 interviews and five years now, the Planta: On the Line interview program continues as a forum for engaging, informative conversations on current affairs and a wide variety of subjects.

from MTV.com:

Slip on your Manolos and grab a Cosmo, girls, because the first “Sex and the City 2″ trailer is here! The nearly minute-and-a-half trailer reveals few plot points, but the sequel looks like another fun- and fashion-filled romp, centering around a girlfriend getaway to the desert.

The gal pals then hop on a plane and jet to the desert to “get carried far away,” which explains the foursome being spotted in Morocco back in November. Did we mention they ride camels? Oh my! After a back seat makeout between Carrie and Big, the trailer closes on the four friends wandering alone in the desert. “Sometimes you just have to get away with the girls,” SJP concludes.

So to sum up, the two big happenings in the sequel appear to be a wedding and a vacay. We’ll have to wait for another trailer to flesh out more of the story and to see a few of those star-studded cameos we’ve been hearing about like Miley Cyrus, Liza Minnelli and Penelope Cruz.

The trailer (see it after the jump!) opens with quick shots of New York City accompanied by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ seriously apropos hit “Empire State of Mind.” “It’s been two years and in two years, amazing things can happen,” purrs Sarah Jessica Parker. Cut to Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) sauntering down a Big Apple sidewalk, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) baking cupcakes with her 2-year-old daughter Rose and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) doing something at what appears to be a wedding (the rumored Stanford Blatch-Anthony Marantino nuptials, perhaps?).

THANKS TO LIZ AT RPULSE.COM!!

http://rpulse.com/sex-and-the-city-2-trailer-video/

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=101594453

Sarah Palin’s book ‘Going Rogue’ has gone platinum.

A HarperCollins spokeswoman said that just two weeks after publication, Sarah Palin’s memoir has sold 1 million copies.

The print run for Going Rogue has been increased again, to 2.8 million copies. The original printing was 1.5 million.

Going Rogue joins a select club of million-selling political memoirs that includes Barack Obama’s ‘The Audacity of Hope’, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ‘Living History’ and Bill Clinton’s ‘My Life’

Sarah Plain is indeed the pause that refreshes, and maybe, just maybe, this self appointed kingmaker is smarter than she appears.

For as long as I can remember, she has been referred to, within her hearing and without, as an intellectual invalid — an appellation that does not seem to distress her, and indeed appears to be one she herself cultivates.

Just as I feel honored, yet undeserving of the title  “novelist”, since I am merely a craftsperson, a cabinetmaker of texts and occasionally, I hope, a witness to our times – it therefore follows that Sarah Palin is the head cabinetmaker of stupid.

Yours, while writing to take revenge against reality.

Righteous

p.s. Sarah Palin will talk intelligently when she wants to. It isn’t like she knows the cure for cancer and she just isn’t fessing up.

From: http://www.cosmoguyonline.com/

Warner Bros. has released another new still from the Sex and the City Sequel. Debuted on Thursday, December 10, the picture features Carrie Bradshaw Preston, Samantha Jones, Miranda Hobbes Brady, and Charlotte York Goldenblatt. Each of the foursome is captured holding a microphone and donning glamorous outfits

M. Sturman Jewelry may not yet be a household name, however should the pieces that were sent to the set of the newest Sex in the City movie make final cut that should change. Nothing seems to stamp an item as a “must have” faster then when it is seen adorning Carrie or one of her closest friends on their glamorous romp through life . The fictitious foursome have become a hallmark of what constitutes high end fashion.

It was exciting to learn that not all the pieces selected for the movie, and possibly destined for stardom themselves, are already part of the fashion elite’s wardrobe. This New York City based jewelry designer uses a collection of unique pearls, stones, beads and vintage pieces, includingSwarovski cabochons and blown glass to create the unusual items in her collection. A stand out piece features Swarovski stones ordered by Christian Dior prior to World War II. Inspired by the colors, shapes and textures of the raw materials the designer painstaking crochets or weaves each piece in her New York City Studio.

The designer Peggy Sturman has a background in art history and floral design which is easily seen in her work. Will she be the next “it” girl of the fashion industry? Only time will tell, but Carrie and the girls could certainly give her a leg up. All the pieces featured above and in the gallery are currently on the set of the new movie.

From http://splashnewsonline.celebuzz.com:

Sex And The City 2: Morocco The six week Moroccan shoot for Sex and the City 2 is well underway. We got all the girls looking fabulous as they shoot airport scenes as well as Sarah Jessica Parker with her nose buried deep in a book. We don’t want to start any rumors or spoil anything, but the pink frock that SJP is sporting could be hiding a little sumptin’ sumptin’. Carrie doesn’t usually sport such loose fitting wear. So could it be true? Is there a little ‘Big’ on the horizon?

A theme seems to be occurring when it comes to my reading habits. I always say that I am not the biggest fan of non fiction and then I read one each year and it completely takes my breath away (well almost) with its brilliance and soon becomes on of my favourites if not my favourite book of the year. This happened last year with ‘The Mitford’s: Letters Between Six Sisters’ by Charlotte Mosley, I utterly adored it couldn’t put it down and yet at the same time didn’t want it to end. This has happened again this year with ‘Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks’ by John Curran.

I heard about Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks on one of the many book podcasts that I download each week. These notebooks were a recent discovery when Christie’s family allowed Greenway, Christie’s holiday home, to be taken over by the National Trust. They had never been on display, they were a mix up of several plots, daily to do’s, shopping lists, character ideas, lists of books (made me love Agatha even more) she wanted and other thoughts with no chronological order. That is where John Curran, an Agatha expert and friend of Christie’s grandson, came in and this book is the results of four years work trying to decipher some of Christie’s handwriting “often like short hand” and working out what notes related to what books and when.

The discoveries are really very interesting. It seems that Curran’s (and probably most readers of her work) image of Agatha sat endlessly typing murder after murder, book after book with the killer planned at the start isn’t quite so. In fact as you get to read her notes, which John has painstakingly transcribed, you find she would often chop and change the killer as she went. The idea for a book might ruminate for years and start from a simple observation as ‘a stamp’ the notes then look at how such an everyday item could cause someone to commit murder. Who knew that a certain famous Poirot scene was originally meant for Miss Marple? Which books didn’t have the endings you and I might have read? Which short stories then with new characters and a subtle plot twist or motive change became a play or a novel? You can find all these things out and much, much more.

The book isn’t just John’s transcriptions, there are some wonderful pictures (as you can see above)  of the notes she had written with crossings out (which actually meant she had used the notes not that they were rubbish. This book isn’t just about her notebooks, though naturally they are predominantly the subject of the book. He also interweaves her personal life from making hair appointments to having her grandchildren to say and being part of ‘The Detection Club’ a group of the finest detective fiction writers with a secret initiation ceremony. Her disappearance isn’t much mentioned but this is more about the process behind the books and what went on in Agatha’s head.

I have to say I don’t think you have to be a huge Agatha fan in order to read this, though if you are this book is pure gold. If you are interested in how the minds of authors work and in particular one of the great British authors (who has sold over two billion copies of her books worldwide) ever then this is also fascinating. There are a couple of glitches in the book. One, which you can overcome, is that it does give a lot of the books endings away. My thoughts on that are just leave those books a while before you read or re-read them as she has so many ‘you could read one a month for seven years’. The other small glitch for me is Curran’s slight case of repetition; I think in the first hundred pages I had read the same quote three times which seemed to be hammering a point home a little too much. This is minor though as I found Curran a really interesting and enjoyable guide through these notebooks, he was never too clever or condescending just very enthusiastic which we all know is highly contagious.

Ooh, I must mention, well show you, the delightful end papers which are a selection of the notebooks and look gorgeous (my Gran could remember lots of them) I think…

This is a wonderful book that I adored, and I freely admit that I am quite a hard person to please with non fiction yet this won me over almost instantly. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite books of the year It has also made my previous desire to read all Agatha Christie that I can a much bigger desire. I am quite tempted to read The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding next week! Oh, which brings me to the point that this book has finally won me over to Poirot and not just because of the notes, but also the two previously unpublished short stories he features in. A must read in my humble opinion.

I knew I was keeping some distance between Daisy and myself when I started writing my novel in 3rd person omniscient. It was deliberate, and without that distance I might not have been able to continue.

Re-writing it in first person, saying ‘I’ did this, feels much more intimate. From feedback I’ve received I think Daisy’s story is stronger.

I’ve had time to get used to the story, so the intimacy that was at first scary, is now manageable. Daisy’s life already feels familiar. Stepping into  her point of view, as if I am Daisy, does feel intimate, but I am not Daisy. To have written about ‘her’ first, changing it to ’me’ later, seems to have granted me some distance that now allows me to write from Daisy’s heart.

Stef Nalton thinks it works, and I’m incredibly grateful for his thoughtful feedback. I’ve already made changes on his recommendation. I’ll soon re-load the new manuscript to Harper Collins’ authonomy website. Comments and reviews from other writers and readers will be welcomed!

DISCLAIMER:  I am not affiliated with  Kathy Griffin.  Also, she is not PROMISED to come but I am hoping she will join us on the Sex and the City tour bus when she comes to NYC.  Nothing is set in stone

Please join On Tour Locations (www.screentours.com) and me tomorrow for some D-LIST HISTORY! SPREAD THE WORD – even if you can’t go!!

COME HELP GET KATHY GRIFFIN BACK TO NEW YORK CITY

WHERE: THE PULITZER FOUNTAIN ACROSS FROM THE PLAZA HOTEL
(Take the N, R, W to the “Fifth Avenue-59th Street” Stop)

WHEN: 10:30AM

MORE INFO: We are in talks with comedienne Kathy Griffin and her people to bring her to NYC to come on the official Sex and the City Tour! There will be a donation in her name for the wonderful organization, Broadway Speaks OUT (www.broadwayspeaksout.com).

She has expressed interest, so to make it even better – we are putting together a video that her and her team will watch! SHE WILL NOT BE THERE TOMORROW, BUT SHE WILL BE WATCHING THE VIDEO WE WILL MAKE!!

You’ll be there for about a half hour starting around 10:30AM cheering, holding signs and maybe being interviewed! Bring any Kathy books, CD’s, DVD, or props. Come as you are, bring friends and be ready for a good time!

If you have anymore questions- please message me!

Neal
Fanpage: Neal B. in NYC
www.nealbinnyc.wordpress.com

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Published by February 2008 by Harper Collins.

ISBN: 978-0061353239

The Recommend:

The kind of book where you catch yourself exclaiming “Oh wow!” and “Really?!” at regular intervals.

With much humour and intelligence, Predictably Irrational tackles the irrationality of our decision-making and how predictable and consistent (at least, scientifically) these strange responses are.

Completely absorbing and illuminating.

*

About Monica Hamburg

*
Monica Hamburg is a Social Media Speaker and Consultant.

Her evil sense of humor can be found on her humor blog, YourDoseofLunacy.com

from MTV.com:

By Holly Lunn

The one and only fashionista is back at it again. With her new movie “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” and highly anticipated“Sex and the City: The Movie 2″ coming soon,Sarah Jessica Parker has a lot on her mind, including her new twin girls. But she still is finding the time to talk about her role as Carrie and give tips on fashion and relationships inGlamour’s January 2010 issue.Since “Sex and the City” started in 1998, it has been giving us ladies tips on how to live the fabulous single life in the big city, how to decode men’s brains and how to deal with major heartbreak. Last year’s movie continued that tradition, but SJP said the sequel won’t be nearly as serious. “The first movie had a lot of sadness in it, and it was very brave about breaking the rules of romantic comedy,” she told the mag. “This one is very much the antidote for that: It’s a romp. It’s about the idea of women’s and men’s roles in marriage, and old traditions versus new ones. The story is really fun, but it’s also about something.”

But Glamour talked to the actress about how movies ofen romanticize love and life — making it hard to understand what happens after the movie ends … after you find love. She responded by saying how easily we all are satisfied with “grand gestures” when you are young, but “when you have children and years invested, it’s much more complicated.” I can see where it could get complicated with Carrie being married to Mr. Big. “You are not meant to know that when you are younger,” she said of the reality of love and marriage. “So I don’t think anybody should regret the choices made in their twenties.” I guess all the mistakes I’ve been making in my twenties don’t really mean much in the long run, thank heaven.

Along with her romantic ideals, Carrie’s eye for style has also developed and changed as she got older, and so has SJP’s. She’s decided to take a simpler approach to style: “I don’t buy anything trendy.” She still has her own idea of fashion though, knowing “what looks good on me and what doesn’t,” which means she vows never to wear a turtleneck.

It took me over 8 hours to make this video today, so I hope you all take a look at it.

Christmas Shoppers, here is a great guide for book lovers!

I’ve made a video based on the information found on The New York Times on November 26, 2009.

Wall Street Journal Best Sellers List.

I was able to feature the top 13 on the list for Hardcover Fiction, the authors, titles, book covers, and publishers.

I tried at first to do the Literary Agents and got stuck on Stephen Kings.

I gave up after that, it was like looking for a needle in the haystack.

I used Google to find each picture and the author’s blogs to make sure I was getting the RIGHT picture. (hopefully they are correct!)

The music is one of my Christmas CD’s and I really wish I had better music to use.

I’m running out of songs.