Five things we think you’ll really like
Color Us Impressed
If you’re struggling with what to paint the spare bedroom – how to pick colors for the accent wall and trim that work with the main tones – there’s a world of coloristas that can help. At colorlovers.com, designers of all stripes recommend their favorite combos, complete with corresponding values that you can bring to your local paint store. With this kind of help, you’ll want to paint the town.
The shill game
If you missed it last spring, pick up Susan Linn’s “Consuming Kids,” in paperback (Anchor Books, $14). Linn, a Harvard psychiatry instructor, puts readers face-to-face with the imagery fired at youths every day in a stroboscopic slideshow of sex, sugar, tobacco, and violence. She’s confrontational without that preachy undertone common among critics unfamiliar with the cultural forces they decry.
Anyone for desert?
This screen adaptation of Clive Cussler’s “Sahara,” on DVD, is so implausible that it weaves a plot of international intrigue with the discovery of a Civil War Ironside in the North African desert. It’s such a guilty pleasure that you may feel impelled to rent “Citizen Kane” as penance for enjoying such hokum.
Picture this…
Whether you’re a long-time photographer or you’ve just caught the shutterbug, scroll through TakeGreatPictures.com, a comprehensive Web site for all things photography. In addition to tips on techniques, reviews of new photo books, and interviews with lensers such as Steve McCurry (who shot that amazing photo of the green-eyed Afghan refugee for the cover of National Geographic), the site also welcomes amateur submissions.
Sensible shelters
Ever wonder what visionary design pros would do with your cluttered and cramped home office? From Sarah Susanka – acknowledged leader of the determined (if uphill) movement to supplant America’s McMansions with intelligently designed smaller homes – comes yet another lovely book. “Inside the Not So Big House” extends Susanka’s franchise, celebrating living spaces that exhibit, as she puts it, “a kind of graceful economy.”
