If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! [Ada] admired great big women. When she was small, she had coveted their authority, their beauty, and their significance. Then she got some for her own damn self. A Nashville, Tennessee native, Ada...

My husband has a friend who appears to have internalised every word of'The Game, and to rather nauseating effect. This guy owns not one, but several cream-coloured suits, wears brimmed hats inside, breaks out in French (and/or karate poses) whenever his girl-dar starts beeping, begins every sentence with I, and has very creatively reinterpreted...

My computers autofill has a habit of trying to update my address to Melbourne, Florida rather than Melbourne, Australia. From what little I know of the former, Id say that theres one key difference between the two: the weather. Todays commute to work involved a battle against Antarctic winds, freezing sleet, and four wheel drives...

When my phone was stolen on the subway in Buenos Aires I awarded myself some travel cred points. After all, Ive travelled through all sorts of dodgy places unscathed (except for a terrible bout of food poisoning in Vietnam and a weird foot infection in Malaysia), so it was about time I had a woe-is-me travel experience to make myself appear...

When I turned eighteen, my Italian grandmother proudly presented me with a truly hideous cutlery collection. For when you get married, she said. For the next seven years that cutlery set was trotted out every single time I visited. For when you get married, was the accompanying refrain each time. Needless to say, shes now...

The more I review, the more I realise how important a books cover is. Not simply because Im the kind of reader who equates a beautiful cover with a brilliant read (Ive been burnt a few times for succumbing to that particular lure), but because a cover is such an integral part of branding. Particular cover designs are associated with...