“The Swell Dress Party”
by Cythia Rowley and Ilene Rosenzweig (Atria Books, $24.95)
Room unearthed this spritely guide to in-home socializing during the flurry of desk cleaning and clutter-busting that preceded the recent Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News office move. To spite the low-key giddiness of settling into a mod new workspace – Room’s fave features in the new Denver Newspaper Agency building so far include the punctuation-sign wallpaper and the squat, triangular Coconut Chairs in the 7th-floor lobby – it was impossible to ignore this book’s blue, green and pink striped cover. And with chapters like “Burn, Baby, Burn Dinner Parties” and “Early Birding: Breakfasts, Brunches (and) Morning Afters,” along with inventive recipes, these fashion and lifestyle purveyors have packed in tons of party-throwing tidbits. Especially heartening is the authors’ philosophy about the perfect hostess: “No one really wants that,” they write.
