Mae West said, “keep a diary and it’ll keep you.”

Here’s a clever idea for modern diarists. From print-on-demand publisher, Ether Press, a stylish book ($10-25) of tweets is a neat way to archive your online musings.

And unlike our lugubrious teenage outpourings, this journal shouldn’t embarrass as much in five-years time. —Athena Tsavliris

www.ether-press.com

There's nothing better than curling up with a good book, our editors share their favourite reads:

Will Ferguson’s Canadian Pie serves up slice-of-life stories the humour writer has collected throughout his career, all of which confirm we live in a delightfully quirky country. $32 at Shelf Life Books, 100, 1302 Fourth St. S.W., Calgary, 403-265-1033, www.shelflifebooks.ca — Jaelyn Molyneux, Calgary editor

Watership Down is one of my favourite books. My husband read it recently and he was enamoured. It is the beautiful story of a group of rabbits running away to start a new life, and a perfect feel-good-make-me-smile novel. $9.98 at www.amazon.ca —Alexandra Suhner Isenberg, Vancouver fashion editor

For some spine-tingling spookiness pick up Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children ($14.43), peppered with vintage photographs for a multi-sensorial reading experience. At www.amazon.ca —Jennifer Nachshen, Montreal editor

If you read one book over the holidays, let it be Téa Obreht’s debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife. What a beautifully written book from a young author with startling talent. $12.27 at www.amazon.ca —Athena Tsavliris, Toronto editor

Of the several books published on Coco Chanel just this year, Intimate Chanel gives us an unprecedented glimpse into her private life, thanks to Chanel’s grandniece and only living relative, who opened the family archives to the author. Through family photographs, correspondence, gifts from her friends and lovers, the book has a voyeuristic feel, like rummaging through someone’s secret drawers. In this case, it’s “Auntie Coco’s.”  $42.64 at www.amazon.ca — Anya Georgijevic, Vancouver beauty editor

I really loved Jeffrey Eugenides’s last book, Middlesex, so I’m going to spend some quality time with my couch this holiday and power through his just-published tome The Marriage Plot. $24.31 at www.amazon.ca —Kelsey Dundon, Vancouver lifestyle editor

For a seriously good cry nothing beats the tragic romance of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audery Niffenegger. Make sure you have ample Kleenex, a cozy blanket and glass (or bottle?) of red wine while you wallow in the delicious sadness of this beautifully written novel. $15.88 at www.amazon.ca —Kelsey Mulyk, Managing editor

Who’s our dream dinner party guest this merry season? Gordon Ramsay and Gloria Steinem would be a treat, but we’re adding a place card for Natalie Maclean.

The penny-pinching sommelier’s latest book Unquenchable ($18.77) is full of tipsy travel tales in search of affordably delicious vino. We love her unstuffy advice: drop an ice-cube in rosé that’s too warm, get good value on wine from regions where our dollar is strong (like Argentina), low-alcohol Australian vintages pair well with Sunday night dinner (they make you less sleepy), and do not fear the twist- top! (It’s everywhere and quicker to open).

Would Gordon and Gloria approve? A few glasses of decent plonk and we doubt we’ll care. —Marianne Wisenthal

Available in eBook or hardcover at www.amazon.ca
Get Natalie’s fabulously free food-pairing app here.

Where else but The Bay can you find kettles and Katrantzou under one roof? From fur traders and settlers to the sartorial playground that it is today (have you not been to The Room yet?) our venerable department store has come a long way, baby.

In this fabulous book ($65), The Hudson Bay Company teams up with Assouline to share stories dating back to its founding in 1670. Bonnie Brooks (CEO & President) initiated the book while Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter wrote the foreword.

With its striped cover, this iconic tome is a major nod to tradition, heritage and Canadian cool. —Athena Tsavliris

www.assouline.com

Not since the Japanese avant-garde invasion of the '80s has a fashion brand been so embraced by the art world as Rodarte, the demi-couture label by twisted sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy. In a brand-new book, photographers Catherine Opie and Alec Soth show you why.

Transgendered models in patchworked chiffon. Zooming shots of shredded shoulders over tattooed skin. Blurred desert vistas. Two intertwined series of photos map the mystical, insular, and not-quite-habitable planet that is Rodarte.

Coffee-table book? Hardly. This one's so dreamy, you'll want to keep it under your pillow at night. —Sarah Nicole Prickett

$95 at Magic Pony, 680 Queen St. W., 416-861-1684, www.magicpony.com or www.amazon.ca

If you're a girl-adult who goes to bridal showers drunk, loathes pastel with a superhuman passion and wonders whatever happened to, like, dating: someone wrote you a book.

The generally acclaimed debut novel from Jennifer Close, Girls in White Dress, isn't as (terrible word alert) chick-litty as you'd think. Sure, the cosmopolitan one-liners can feel lifted from a certain '90s HBO show. But her interconnected short stories, tracing familiar patterns of post-graduate ennui and reluctant maturity among New York twenty-somethings, have a welcome and sardonic honesty. There's a dark thread in all the air-light dresses, seen by Close as more economic burden than feminine pleasure. If you tug a little, it unravels a hard knowing: happiness doesn't get easier, and getting older sometimes just feels like getting less young.

This isn't a beach read, but a transitional one, for girls between seasons. —Sarah Nicole Prickett

A new tale by writer and Globe columnist Tabatha Southey is called It Must Be Tall as a Lighthouse  and has illustrations by architect Will Alsop—but it's not about bricks and glass.

It is about, and to, her son. It is a valentine. “For Basil,” goes the inscription, “I never bought you an iguana. And for Alice.” Southey's kiddies should be proud. Her words are lilting and capricious, then heart-catching; Alsop's drawings, inky and naive.

Your inner-child will say “read it again” and “please.” —SNP

Available July 1 at The Book Bakery, www.thebookbakery.biz

Come the sun, it's easy (er, easier) to eschew junky food and eat all things green instead. Same with your face: you want to fling aside chemicals and creams and go au naturel—or as close as possible. And so! Andrea Victory, proud new owner of eco-beauty boutique Pretty Beauty & Books, shares her summer gotta-haves.

1. Scotch Naturals Watercolor Polish in "Leprechaun Lynch" ($17.50), an opaque mint crème shade that makes me feel like I'm at the pool with a margarita.

2. Tatcha Aburatorigami Japanese Beauty Papers ($12.50 for 30 sheets). These glam handmade blotting papers have gold flakes in them and mattify like magic, without adding powder. A necessity for looking sweet in the heat. Also biodegradable.

3. Ilia Lip Conditioner in "Shell Shock" ($25). This is the perfect coral pink: summery, fresh, brightens all skin types. It's all-natural and conditions like a lip balm, but goes on like a lipstick.

4. Tallulah Jane Natural Eau de Parfum in "333" ($53.50). With three types of lavender, three types of chamomile and three essences of citrus, people say it resembles lime or lemonade. Perfectly refreshing in the heat.

5. Crawford Street Skin Care Lemon Deodorant Cream ($12.50). I actually never leave the house without this! All natural and locally made, as the name implies. It actually works - I swear - my fiancé (and shop co-owner) even uses it.

—SNP

All available now at Pretty Beauty & Books, 587 Markham St., Toronto, 905-580-0285,
http://prettybeautyandbooks.com

Here's a children's bedtime story that won't put you to sleep.

Tired of being the good parent? Novelist and dad Adam Mansbach has a lullaby for you: Go The F*** To Sleep. Published by Akashic Books and leaked on the web to uproarious cheers of relief, the book is a satirical and hilarious pastiche of popular sleepytime tales—for when the originals just aren't doing sh**. Choice quote: “The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest / And the creatures who crawl, run and creep. / I know you're not thirsty. That's bullsh**. Stop lying. / Lie the f*** down, my darling, and sleep.”

Not so tender is the night. —SNP

$15 at Type Books, 883 Queen St. W., Toronto or 427 Spadina Rd., Toronto, http://typebooks.ca

It takes a full-grown girl to admit that “cool mom” isn't an oxymoron. And if you're not quite there, My Mom, Style Icon will convince you to the max.

When writer Piper Weiss delved into family albums and discovered her mother's secret history of wild style, it changed her life. No exaggeration. She began blogging her favourite found photos, then collecting like submissions from readers. Now Weiss' trove of vintageness is a cutesy new book, available most places books are sold—and beloved by style blogs half the world over.

From Audrey Hepburn stripes to Farrah Fawcett hair, Sunday-best dresses to bathing suits, My Mom, Style Icon is everyone's photo album. Plus, it might just compel your mum to re-open hers, and you, to look again. —SNP

$21.95 at the Drake General Store, 82A Bathurst, drakegeneralstore.myshopify.com and Amazon.ca