First published in Spring 2003, this collection of stories was welcomed to critical acclaim including a two page spread in The New York Times.The stories in Beth Ann Bauman's debut collection explore the secret lives of girls and women. The characters who inhabit Beautiful Girls are the timid, the not-quite-fabulous, the public school Ophelias, who yearn for something grander than their current lot.Told with irresistible humor and a cockeyed economy, these stories illuminate the search for love, friendship, connection, and identity.

** 55% OFF for Bookstores ! NOW at 40 $ instead of 90 $ ** Your customers will be captured by the Beauty and Charm of 57 wonderful Woman. Woman Portrayed in the most diverse sets and dresses. Photographic Portraits of Women can only hardly represent the richness and complexity of nuance that a woman can feel, express, suggest. What I have learned from women is much more than I expected. And more than I can really understand. Respect, self-awareness, dialogue and trust are needed to welcome a woman willing to be portrayed. Consequently, the magic will happen. Women who judge themselves to much and force themselves into a predefined image, reveal their beauty when they are loved, respected and listened. If we are able to be true to ourselves and communicate correctly, a shooting session can be such an engaging and evolutionary experience. Fears fade away, words vanish in silence and the gaze of Women blossoms. It is a miracle !! Beauty spread its flavors in silence and peace. That's it. Portraiture photography is like a prayer. Two people meet, and let the dialogue come from within. Without judging too much, without borders. It has been a journey into Beauty selecting the photos for this book, and I am sure it will be the same for you taking a look at these images. If I can get you 1% of the same emotions I felt while taking these shots...please let me know... Buy this book, and you will bring with you moments of Beauty, Seduction, and Wonder. Wrapped in all these 57 Women's eyes. Selected for your eyes. Have a nice journey. Join the beauty. ** BUY IT NOW and let your customers get inspired by these images of Beauty **

"In the tradition of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Palombo has married fine art with romantic historical fiction in this lush and sensual interpretation of Medici Florence, artist Sandro Botticelli, and the muse that inspired them all." - Booklist A girl as beautiful as Simonetta Cattaneo never wants for marriage proposals in 15th Century Italy, but she jumps at the chance to marry Marco Vespucci. Marco is young, handsome and well-educated. Not to mention he is one of the powerful Medici family’s favored circle. Even before her marriage with Marco is set, Simonetta is swept up into Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici’s glittering circle of politicians, poets, artists, and philosophers. The men of Florence—most notably the rakish Giuliano de’ Medici—become enthralled with her beauty. That she is educated and an ardent reader of poetry makes her more desirable and fashionable still. But it is her acquaintance with a young painter, Sandro Botticelli, which strikes her heart most. Botticelli immediately invites Simonetta, newly proclaimed the most beautiful woman in Florence, to pose for him. As Simonetta learns to navigate her marriage, her place in Florentine society, and the politics of beauty and desire, she and Botticelli develop a passionate intimacy, one that leads to her immortalization in his masterpiece, The Birth of Venus. Alyssa Palombo’s The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence vividly captures the dangerous allure of the artist and muse bond with candor and unforgettable passion.

Sarah Banet-Weiser complicates the standard feminist take on beauty pageants in this intriguing look at a hotly contested but enduringly popular American ritual. She focuses on the Miss America pageant in particular, considering its claim to be an accurate representation of the diversity of contemporary American women. Exploring the cultural constructions and legitimations that go on during the long process of the pageant, Banet-Weiser depicts the beauty pageant stage as a place where concerns about national identity, cultural hopes and desires, and anxieties about race and gender are crystallized and condensed. The beauty pageant, she convincingly demonstrates, is a profoundly political arena deserving of serious study. Drawing on cultural criticism, ethnographic research, and interviews with pageant participants and officials, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World illustrates how contestants invent and reinvent themselves while articulating the female body as a national body. Banet-Weiser finds that most pageants are characterized by the ambivalence of contemporary "liberal" feminism, which encourages individual achievement, self-determination, and civic responsibility, while simultaneously promoting very conventional notions of beauty. The book explores the many different aspects of the Miss America pageant, including the swimsuit, the interview, and the talent competitions. It also takes a closer look at some extraordinary Miss Americas, such as Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America; Vanessa Williams, the first African American Miss America; and Heather Whitestone, the first Miss America with a disability.

They say Delia burned herself to death in her stepfather's shed, but June does not believe it was suicide because she and Delia used to be closer than anything, but one night a year ago, everything changed when they and June's boyfriend Ryan let their good time get out of hand, and now, a year later, June owes it to Delia to know if her best friend committed suicide or was murdered.

Beauty seems simple; we know it when we see it. But of course our ideas about what is attractive are influenced by a broad range of social and economic factors, and in Beauty and Business leading historians set out to provide this important cultural context. How have retailers shaped popular consciousness about beauty? And how, in turn, have cultural assumptions influenced the commodification of beauty? The contributors here look to particular examples in order to address these questions, turning their attention to topics ranging from the social role of the African American hair salon, and the sexual dynamics of bathing suits and shirtcollars, to the deeper meanings of corsets and what the Avon lady tells us about changing American values. As a whole, these essays force us to reckon with the ways that beauty has been made, bought, and sold in modern America.