Helpful Books and Resources

Spent: Exposing Our Complicated Relationship With Shopping

I normally don’t like short story compilations.  I find there’s not enough of a through line to keep me interested.  But this book being on a topic I am positively fascinated by — our complicated relationship with shopping — was an exception to my usual rule of avoiding short story compilations. Spent: Exposing our Complicated […]

The Shoe Queen

An intriguing novel set in 1920s Paris, The Shoe Queen chronicles a fairly tortured and tumultuous period in the life of an English woman of noble birth, Genevieve Shelby King. A self confessed shoe-a-holic, her collection has 523 pairs in it, all lovingly stored in their original boxes and kept in a dedicated shoe room in the […]

Mind What You Wear

Professor Karen Pine has given us a wonderful gift in her thoughtful short book, Mind What You Wear.  This book draws together psychology and fashion, and references a number of studies that illustrate the impact that clothing has on how we think and what we feel. I’ve been fascinated by fashion (well style, more so than fashion […]

UnShopping: Recovery Solutions from an Ex-Shopaholic

It’s my pleasure today to share a new book with you, by blogger, author and fellow ex-shopaholic Debbie Roes. Tell us about your new book! My book is titled “UnShopping: Recovery Solutions from an Ex-Shopaholic.” It contains the best of my smart shopping solutions from my blog, “Recovering Shopaholic,” categorized into six logical sections related to […]

The Lost Art of Dress

  This book delighted me. It intrigued me. It kept me up reading long after I should have been lights out. I couldn’t put it down. It was as absorbing as the best mystery thrillers. Dr Linda Przybyszewski not only has one of the most intricate surnames to spell, requiring much concentration to make sure […]

To Die For – Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?

I recently finished reading Lucy Siegle’s book To Die For.  Lucy is an English writer on topics in the sustainable realm, and she spent quite  few years researching and writing this book. The blurb on the back of the book states that it “peels back the layers of the global wardrobe to reveal the naked […]

The Secret Lives of Clothes

  I recently finished reading the delightful book  The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean.  It chronicles the hapless Dora who is drawn back to her home town when her grandmother, who raised her, has a stroke. Mimi owns a vintage boutique in town, and has been writing the “secret lives” of her stock.  […]

Addicted to Shopping

  Addicted to Shopping is a book that I found uplifting in the end, but it had a few bumpy parts as I was reading it.  The author, Karen O’Connor, is an experienced writer – over 40 publications.  She is also a Christian and that theme is woven through her book on nearly every page.  If you are […]

Why Women Shop

Why Women Shop by Stella Minahan and Michael Beverland is a generous book.  Stella and Michael work for Universities (Stella at Deakin and Michael at Melbourne) and their collaboration is a research-based expose on the motivations behind women’s shopping activities. Having read a few books coming out of acadaemia, I wasn’t sure what to expect with […]