Dying To Be Beautiful

Tells the story of how cosmetics came to be regulated in early 20th century America. Examines the cosmetics industry in light of the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act.

Fake Beauty The author of best-selling book, Looking Beautiful, isn’t looking so beautiful. Out in The Hamptons, the dead body of Jordan Kennedy is found stuffed into the window of a local bookstore, which was then set on fire—burning Jordan along with copies of her book. She was supposed to do a book signing, but it seems someone has murdered her instead. Fat Free Marcus D’Elroy has spent the morning of every New Year’s Day combing The Hamptons beaches with his metal detector. He does it to remember his father and the activity they once shared before his dad’s untimely death. This particular first day of the year, Marcus finds something frightening and disturbing: a dead body, covered in a large gold satin scarf. For tough and glamorous Private Investigator Jenna Preston, murder in The Hamptons is becoming all too common, especially with so many people dying to be beautiful. Fortunately, Jenna has the help of her Irish Setter, Watson. She’s got two new mysteries to solve—and quickly—before someone else ends up dead, thanks to the multi-million-dollar world of beauty and the things people will do to attain it. “DYING TO BE BEAUTIFUL is a fascinating look into the multi-million dollar world of beauty and the things people will do to attain it. [Rosen is] a fun and engaging storyteller who clearly knows her way around a plot twist or two.” — NEW YORK PUBLISHING AGENT “Without a Head [Book 1] ... a quirky female private investigator novel that will keep readers hooked with its charm, wit and suspense.” — CITY BOOK REVIEW “Applause and more applause for Dying to Be Beautiful, the book and the characters, including a beautiful setter dog named Watson (smart, protective, and necessary to the plot) [who] brings humor and humanity to the whole. I loved it.” — HAMPTON RESIDENT AND AUTHOR

One of Washington Independent Review of Books' 50 Favorite Books of 2018 • A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 "Morbidly witty." —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times "You’ll be as appalled at times as you are entertained." —Bustle, one of The 17 Best Nonfiction Books Coming Out In June 2018 "A heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip." —Aja Raden, author of Stoned In the Washington Post roundup, "What your favorite authors are reading this summer," A.J. Finn says, “I want to read The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman’s history of poisons." Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison as a political—and cosmetic—tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder.

In the tradition of Heaven Is for Real (with a twist of Into Thin Air), a new book that explores what really happens when we die. In March 1980, Peter Panagore went ice climbing on the world-famous Lower Weeping Wall, along the Ice Fields Parkway in Banff National Park in Alberta. His climbing partner was an experienced ice climber, but Panagore was a novice. On their descent, they became trapped on the side of the mountain. As the sun set, Panagore was overcome by exhaustion and hypothermia and died on the side of that mountain. In his minutes on the other side, he experienced hell, forgiveness, and unconditional love. Heaven was beautiful. In Heaven Is Beautiful, Panagore explores how his near death experience (NDE) changed his life and resulted in an intense spiritual journey that has continued for decades. It impelled him to pursue a master’s degree at Yale Divinity School focusing on systematic theology and Christian mysticism. His educational background coupled with 30 years of yogic and meditative practice and 20 years of professional work with the dying and grieving has given him unique insight, language, and perspective on heaven, God, death, life, love, beauty, and hope. In Panagore's own words: “I have told my story to audiences large and small for a decade now. . . . My story touches people’s hearts; every time I tell it the audience is gripped and silent. . . . This book is about hope. It is meant to provide real hope to the dying, hope to the fearful, hope to the hopeless, hope to the grieving.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "I had the choice to come back ... or not. I chose to return when I realized that 'heaven' is a state, not a place" In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body! Within this enhanced e-book, Anita recounts—in words and on video—stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge. In "Dying to Be Me," Anita Freely shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, "being love," and the true magnificence of each and every human being!

"Bracing and beautiful . . . Every human should read it." —The New York Times A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice At the age of sixty, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: she now weighs less than her neighbor’s retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience—the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance—of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches: Taylor describes the tangle of her feelings, remembers the lives and deaths of her parents, and examines why she would like to be able to choose the circumstances of her death. Taylor’s last words offer a vocabulary for readers to speak about the most difficult thing any of us will face. And while Dying: A Memoir is a deeply affecting meditation on death, it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.

"Built on her ... Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a ... memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38-year-old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson--mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years--after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

We're all dying. Sooner or later we're going to croak, kick the bucket, give up the ghost, cash in our chips, shuffle off, bow out or go to our happy hunting ground. It's the one thing we all have in common. Yet no one seems to want to talk about it. Well, the people at Pilotlight do. Unlike our ancestors, for whom dying was an important part of living, many of us will face death without any innate spiritual insight. When someone dies, no one seems to know what to say. Dying to Know aims to change all that. Based on the bestselling CHANGE THE WORLD FOR TEN BUCKS, Dying to Know is a collection of conversation starters and idea buds partnered with practical information, quirky facts and specialist advice that lifts the lid on death: planning a personalised funeral; designing and decorating your own coffin; organ donation; coping with the pain of loss; creating online memorials; strange mortuary practices; avoiding teenage suicide; making setting up a Will fun; helping children cope with death; things to do before you die; and a host of other topics. Each is presented in a double-page spread and aims to empower, inspire and, at times, amuse the reader. The book is also designed as a resource that links the reader to a vast range of services and organisations u everything from mortician's courses to statutory information about Wills. How do you ask Granddad if he wants the Collingwood theme song played at his funeral? Should you tell loved ones you're donating your organs? Why did ancient Greeks bury their dead with a coin in their mouth? Can you be buried in a cardboard box?