Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF by April Winchell

Like most things I find on the Internet, I have no idea how I first found Regretsy. It was probably written up somewhere - a blog? Entertainment Weekly? - and I hopped over to check it out. I know that I was already familiar with Etsy and this new blog provided a window into the sort of thing that I had never seen. Photographs with random nudity, jewelry in the shape of penises and vaginas, things that say they're steampunk but they are so not steampunk... it seemed like there was no end to these incredible listings. Regretsy is also available in book form; classic items are accompanied by commentary by April Winchell.

I knew that I would love this book, but I was surprised by how much I loved it. It's more than just a collection of Regretsy's greatest hits and new entries. Each chapter has an essay that explores different aspects of the Etsy/Regretsy world. What kind of statements are vagina necklaces really making? How do you foster creativity? Does everything deserve an audience? At the end of the book there are listings of the sellers featured in the book, the bios of the sellers, and even a space for the sellers to comment on Regretsy, their inclusion, and criticism in general. These inclusions took the book from an extension of the website (which would have been enough to be a solid book) to something that explores art, commerce, creativity, and criticism, all through the lens of 21st century society. I highly recommend checking this book out.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
Read My Lips by Debby Herbenick and Vanessa Schick
That is Priceless by Steve Yelcher
Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller

Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong by Jen Yates

If you're a fan of the Cake Wrecks blog, you know exactly what kind of wrecktacular stuff you're going to be finding in this book. Misspelled words, literal directions, icing that looks like poo, cupcake cakes, naked babies, random Darth Vaders... there's no end to what people will put on a cake. I like reading Cake Wrecks because there's that whole "Wait...what...no!...what?" aspect where I can't believe that this actually happens to people. Some of those baby shower cakes will haunt me in my dreams. Maybe I'm just blessed (cursed?) with a local supermarket bakery section who stay away from wrecks, but I've never seen anything remotely close to this in person. But I do believe that other people have, because here is the photographic evidence. The book doesn't have the depth of the blog - that's one area where hyperlinks have the advantage over paper - but it does organize the wrecks into sections and succeeds in really building up a "bam-bam-bam" pace of revealing the wrecks. The book also has a bit of "behind the scenes" information on what Jen Yates has learned since launching the blog, including why she now doesn't spend a lot of time writing on posts that are likely to be controversial. I definitely recommend checking out the blog, and if you find that it's your sense of humour, consider diving into the Cake Wrecks book.

Cake Wrecks is published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
Wreck the Halls: Cake Wrecks Gets "Festive" by Jen Yates
That is Priceless by Steve Melcher
Awkward Family Photos by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack

Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time by Mignon Fogarty

Writing can be hard. Not only do you have to take an empty page and fill it with words, you also have to be careful to avoid misspellings, grammar errors, and using the wrong word. Where can you go to find out the answers to all of your grammar questions? The Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty, has been solving people's tough questions for years, and in 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time she takes on some tough words that you might have spent some time scratching your head over in the past - but scratch no more, because help is on the way!

I find word usage really interesting; I like learning about how words have changed over time and what the origins of certain words are. It seems like a lot of the confusion over words or tenses comes from a tension between British usage and American usage; Canadian usage is often a mixture of the two, so even with this book as a guide things still seemed to be a bit up in the air. I am most familiar with Grammar Girl on Twitter and had never really checked out her site, so her style of writing was new to me. I liked it. It was conversational and forgiving and less "hard and fast" than I was expecting a grammar guide to be. Grammar purists might not like all of the "in common usage, you can probably keep doing what you're doing" advice, but I really respect her focus on clear meaning rather than the strict following of grammar rules (and besides, grammar purists are probably busy pulling their hair out over Twitter or reality TV or something like that). Including examples from TV, movies, and books also helped to ground the discussion in actual real-world usage. If you're working for an organization that has its own style guide, you should definitely stick to that, but if you're looking for some helpful clarifications for your own writing, this is one title that you will want to peruse.

Check out the Grammar Girl website.

I received a review copy from NetGalley courtesy of St. Martin's Press.

Find it at IndieBound. 

Read it with:
Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master In No Time by Mignon Fogarty
Grammar Girl's 101 Words to Sound Smart by Mignon Fogarty
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White
I Used to Know That by Caroline Taggert

The Smiley Book of Colors by Ruth Kaiser

There are smiles everywhere. Not just on happy people, but on things like buildings, food, and clothing. Two eyes, a curve for a mouth, sometimes a nose and voila - an instant face. You might have to squint to see them, or maybe you see them easily (it probably depends on the person). I think I've confessed before on this blog that I'm someone who frequently sees 'faces' on houses (windows, doors, sometimes even a porch mustache), so this book was a natural fit for me. Built around examining colours, this book has the potential to be a bit scary for some kids (imagine faces everywhere - it's not too hard to get to imagining things coming to life), but with the right person it can jump-start their creativity and encourage them to think differently about the world around them.

This book came out of the Spontaneous Smiley Project, so if you're in the mood for some more smiles, head on over there and check them out.

I received a review copy from Edelweiss courtesy of Golden Books (Random House).

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Ruby, Violet, Lime: Looking for Color by Jane Brocket
Building Stories by Isabel Hill
Urban Animals by Isabel Hill
Look Book by Tana Hoban

Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper and Brian Bellmont

Crissy dolls. Encyclopedia Brown. Choco-diles. Seven Up Bar. The 70s and 80s had a particular flavour that is instantly identifiable. Some of the items that were so popular then continue to this day; others have been revamped and revised, and some have been discontinued altogether. They went quietly from the shelves, confusing loyal fans who have spent years trying to replicate tastes, sounds, and appearances. This book asks the question that has been on a generation's mind: whatever happened to Pudding Pops?

As a pop culture enthusiast, resisting this book was a futile effort. I eagerly paged through the book, thinking back at things I'd experienced in my own life (Connect Four, Choose Your Own Adventure, TV theme songs) and things that I've seen covered in other nostalgia-based works. Owing both to a slightly different age bracket as well as a different country of origin (Canada, which has its own lost tastes, toys, and trends), there were many things here that I was learning about for the first time (Zoom, O'Boisies, the Hal Needham stunt set). One of the limitations of reading this book was that, as a paper book, it was entirely self-contained. At many times I wished I was reading it with my laptop so I could do Google image searches, look up unknown names on IMDB, and (the biggest wish) check out old commercials on YouTube. My longing for web connections also had me thinking about my own era and if we will continue to have the same time of "What happened to...?" or "Remember the..." publications that have come before. When so many things are catalogued online and details are just a wikipedia click away, will we ever have to wonder what happened to a forgotten memory? I'm not so young that I don't remember a time before the internet, so I know the difference that finding online evidence can make in validating a childhood memory (there are still a few that I can't anyone else remembering). At any rate, Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops is a fun look back at a 'simpler time' and the stuff that has captured the imaginations of a generation of people.

Check out the blog that spawned the book, GenXtinct.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Sunshine by Norma Klein
The Official Preppy Handbook edited by Lisa Birbach
Just Can't Get Enough: Toys, Games, and Other Stuff from the 80s that Rocked by Matthew Robinson and Jensen Karp
From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century by David Mansour
Totally Tubular 80s Toys by Mark Bellomo

The One Week Job Project by Sean Aiken

When Sean Aiken graduated from college, he had no idea what he wanted to do and no idea how to go about finding out what he wanted to do. So he developed a project that would give him the chance to find out. Every week for one year he would take on a different job. Then, after having worked at 52 different jobs, he would hopefully be closer to finding out what he wanted to do. When he started out he had no idea where the jobs would take him or what he would be doing. When he finished, he had a much different understanding of himself.

This is a fun concept. It's not something that I have the personality or the inclination to do, so I get to live vicariously through this person's experiences. It's easy to be skeptical or even cynical about this experiment. On one level, there's the question of the job experience. How much can you really experience in a week? If you step into a job with no experience and little training, are you really doing the job or are you shadowing? Some of that is just a semantic difference, and Sean Aiken does a good job of explaining how the project worked and what experiences he did have. I also found myself wondering how, for lack of a better word, 'genuine' this project was. Aiken, from very early on the project, used social media and web technologies incredibly smartly. He was able to promote the project and himself. In the book, he admits that he anticipated writing a book about the project. At the end of the 52 weeks, he doesn't really come away with a job that's right for him; he comes away with a job/career that he's created for himself through the One Week Job Project. Would it have been more satisfying for me as a reader to find out that at the end of the project he had decided that he really did want to be a brewmaster (week 19) or a yoga instructor (week 7)? Would that have been more "honest"? Probably not, and then we wouldn't be reading this book, which creates a weird kind of loop. Besides, this book is just as much (if not more) about Sean and his relationships with others (his parents and family members, his friends, his new girlfriend) while he goes on this journey.

But to the book itself! It's is structured really well and hooks you in and keeps you interested. It's a fun read. This has been marketed (or at least I have seen it being marketed) to the 'just out of school' crowd, but I think it is a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered if there's a perfect job out there for them.

See more at the One Week Job website.

It's also a movie; view the trailer here.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Craft Rubin
Living Oprah by Robyn Okrant
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Not Buying It by Judith Levine

Hot Guys and Baby Animals by Audrey Khuner and Carolyn Newman

Two popular items come together in this very straightforwardly-named book: hot guys and baby animals. Guys in various states of dress pose with cats, dogs, sheep, a snake, and other animals. Beyond that, there's not that much more to say. To get a sense of the book, see more pictures at Hot Guys and Baby Animals. Its size, price, and subject matter makes it a likely pick for stocking stuffers, bachelorette parties, birthdays, and joke gifts (and, according to the Andrews McMeel website, purchases will benefit the SPCA.)

See more pictures at Hot Guys and Baby Animals.

Find it at the Andrews McMeel website.

Read it with:
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
That is Priceless by Steve Yelcher
Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller

Cat Vs Human by Yasmine Surovec

People generally divide others into two groups: people who are cat people, and people who are not cat people. (For the record, I am not a cat person - I have never owned a cat as a pet.) Cat vs Human breaks it down a little more, pointing out the fine line between being a Cat Person and a Crazy Cat Person. To the untrained eye (i.e. mine), this line is often blurred, but Yasmine Surovec makes a good case for why anyone would put up with such things as coughed-up hairballs all over the place, cats sleeping wherever they want, destroyed furniture, shredded clothing, scratches... I really like her drawing style and the sense of humour and perspective that she brings to each comic, and I would love to see her write and illustrate more books in the future.

Read more about Yasmine Surovec and her comics.

Find more information at the Andrews McMeel page for the book.

Read it with:
Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj
5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth by The Oatmeal
This is Priceless by Steven Melcher
xkcd volume 0 by Randall Munroe

Fail Harder: Failblog.org Community

The term "fail" has become so ubiquitous in today's conversation. Urban Dictionary defines it, among other things, as the glorious lack of success. Jack Layton used the phrase "hashtag fail" in the English language leaders debate in the last federal election. Most of its current usage comes from the Fail Blog, part of the Cheezburger family of blogs. Fail Harder takes the blog to a book, featuring photographic evidence of fails around the world. Helpfully divided into ten categories (such as school, the mall, holidays, kids, pets, and more), the pictures show a wide variety of fails. Some are causes for confusion (two signs for exits, pointing left and right). Some have words in the wrong order (eat kids for free). There are spelling mistakes, design flaws, and unfortunate names for businesses and products. I was shaking my head, usually in disbelief, most of the time I was reading it. You have to see this stuff to believe it.

Find more information at the Andrews McMeel website.

I read an advance review copy from NetGalley.

Read it with:
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
That is Priceless by Steve Yelcher
Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller

What I Wore by Jessica Quirk

What's the secret to looking great? According to Jessica Quirk, it's kind of like a recipe. Based on her popular blog What I Wore, this book shows how a closet full of staples (and a few show pieces) can blossom into a magnificent clothing collection. What I Wore is divided into four sections that match up with the four seasons. The advice is practical and there are lots of tips for people who are working from a limited budget. I think this could be a great gift or resource book for someone who is just starting their career or transitioning from college to the workforce. As someone who is decidedly plus-sized, I'm not sure how applicable all of the 'recipes' are to me, but there were a lot of great ideas about how to manage my closet and build a solid wardrobe.

See more at Random House.

See more at What I Wore: A Personal Style Blog.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
What I Wore Today by Korero Books
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman
Nina Garcia's Look Book by Nina Garcia
Wear This, Toss That by Amy E. Goodman
Oh No She Didn't by Clinton Kelly

Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Brooke Berlin's life is almost perfect. Her father is Hollywood legend Brick Berlin. Fellow students at her exclusive Prep School either love or fear her. She's about to have an epic birthday party that is sure to land her in the paparazzi photos that she so desperately wants. But all of that is threatened with the discovery that Brick has another child - a daughter who's been living in Indiana and is the same age as Brooke. Molly, her half-sister, is now coming to live with Brooke and Brick, but things don't start off smoothly. Can the two girls find a common ground, or will their relationship be permanently spoiled?

I almost feel like I should say something in terms of full disclosure. I don't know either Heather Cocks or Jessica Morgan personally, and they don't know me. But I have been fans of theirs for years - at Go Fug Yourself, definitely, but before that, at Television Without Pity. I first found it back when it was Mighty Big TV (to give you a hint of the time frame, I was looking for recaps of episodes of Making the Band. Remember O-Town?). I know with certainty that both Jessica and Heather are funny, funny women. (Jessica's recap of the Dawson's Creek episode "Downtown Crossing" should be required reading.)

ANYWAY.

I had an advanced copy of the book sitting around for awhile, but it was like I was too nervous to actually read it; I wanted it to be as good as I hoped it would be. Turns out, I shouldn't have worried. This is a very funny, smartly written book that has a lot of satirical observations but also a strongly relatable core. I was skeptical when, on the first page, I met a character named Arugula, but the outlandish Hollywood details are really just a background that lets the Berlin family shine. (Also, with the Arnold Schwarzenegger secret child news coming out recently, could this book BE released at a better time?) While I wouldn't want to have Brick Berlin as a father, he's very amusing in Spoiled. (Sharing some of Brick's plans for marketing himself would run the surprise of discovering them). I empathized with both Molly and Brooke at different times, but neither of them are perfect characters, and there are enough mistakes to go around. Spoiled leaves lots of opportunities for the sequel, and I'm already looking forward to the next book.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Go Fug Yourself: The Fug Awards by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Elixir by Hilary Duff
L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad
Why Girls Are Weird by Pamela Ribon
Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal

Awkward Family Photos by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack

I have them. You have them. We all have them: awkward family photos. They might have everyone wearing identical clothing. They might involve costumes. They could be taken on a holiday, a family reunion, or a child's recital. People could be looking away from the camera; everyone could be staring intently at the camera. There are any number of ways for a photo to turn awkward (even if it was trendy at the time, like my school pictures with a laser background). These photos have been collected on the Awkward Family Photos blog, which turned into this book. The book takes the best parts of the blog - the pictures, the commentary, and the readers' submissions explaining (but not always defending) the awkward backstory. It's a quick read, and definitely amusing.

See more photos at Awkward Family Photos.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
That is Priceless by Steve Melcher
Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller

That is Priceless by Steven Melcher

Have you ever looked at a painting and thought, "Hmm, I wonder if the painter meant it to look like that child is crushing a small bird? This can't end well." That is the very question that Steven Melchor asked - well, a variation on it - and that led to his blog "That is Priceless," where he gives paintings both famous and obscure new titles. These new titles, like "Real Housewives of the Acropolis," "Jesus Obsessed With His iPad," "Oops! Sorry, Wrong Door," and "Guess Who Found His Mom's Curling Iron?" are meant to say what we're all thinking. It's a funny concept and the book is just about the right length so that it doesn't overstay the joke. (One quibble: there was one caption that snapped me right out of the book - a needless apostrophe on "Witness Protection Program's Family of the Year (the Doe's).")

See more at That is Priceless. I read an advance copy of it at NetGalley.

Read it with:
5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin by The Oatmeal
Regretsy by April Winchell
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller
Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions by Christian Lander

Passive Aggressive Notes compiled by Kerry Miller

No two people are the same. And when adults have to live and work together, conflicts can come up. Some people deal with them head on, talking things out and letting people know when they are upset. Others...deal with things more...passive aggressively. They write passive aggressive notes and then leave them where lots of people can see them. Sometimes these notes are saved and collected, and make their way to PassiveAggressiveNotes.Com. And then some of those made their way into this book.

What I learned from reading this book:
1. Having a roommate is not always as fun as it looks on Friends.
2. People are really confused by the 'i before e except after c' rule.
3. Dishes, especially dirty dishes, cause a lot of problems.

There's more, too, but those are the ones that stand out.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
PostSecret by Frank Warren
I Can't Keep My Own Secrets edited by Smith Magazine
Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates