Lyons Press

06/14/2026

Dreaming of armfuls of homegrown flowers? 💐

In this homesteader’s guide, author Joanna Blessing explores the many lives of cut flowers from blooms that can fill a vase, flavor a meal, steep into tea, become natural dyes, and even generate income.

Inside you’ll find tips for planning a thriving flower garden, recipes featuring edible blooms, and creative projects that make the most of every harvest.

Start the flower garden of your dreams today with THE HOMESTEADER’S GUIDE TO CUT FLOWERS 📖🌸

06/12/2026

And that’s why we love reading 📚

06/08/2026

“A riveting account of women who stepped in during wartime to fill the country’s greatest need: building ships.” — Heidi M. Thomas

Delve into the untold story of Augusta Clawson, the undercover investigator who helped shape the future for World War II’s women welders.

06/05/2026

The ocean has a superpower— and retired Coast Guard Captain and author Martha LaGuardia-Kotite is on a mission to protect it.

Check out their TEDx talk, “Let’s save the ocean’s superpower” and get ready for their next adventure GUARDIANS AT SEA, arriving this fall 🚨🌊

06/03/2026

Banton of Paramount: Haute Couture in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Howard Gutner
NonFiction, Fashion Design, Biography
Publisher: Lyons Press Published: 5.19.26
Pages: 352
Format: Hardback

🧵👗🎬👡🪡

Review:
When Old Hollywood not only dominated public entertainment, but the fashion became a lifestyle, Travis Banton’s designs were on everyone’s lips. Howard Gutner who has previously wrote the biographies of the other two members of the Hollywood Fashion big three finishes out his triumvirate with a man destined for the law who chose to create American Haute Couture from New York to Hollywood.

Travis Banton, a born Texan came from a family prestigious in the legal community and was expected to follow in their footsteps, but after high school in New Jersey, he pursued art and design school in NYC. He worked for the premier Lady Duff-Gordon’s fashion design where he learned that making a big production out of fashion (music, setting, ‘model’ characters, and entertainment) was a must. He designed for exclusive wealth, but broke into Broadway and then was tempted out to Hollywood in the 1920’s where he pioneered designing for the actress’ character and had a gift for working with the most temperamental of actresses to wear his work. He was one of the first to have extensive control over his fashions put into his contract and his was the opinion every American fashion journal awaited when he came back from Paris and NYC fashion week.

He made ‘talkie’ actresses the absolute word on chic, his Dragon Dress designed for one of his favorite actresses, Anna May Wong, is iconic. Fan and fashion magazines were rivaling Paris fashion at the height of the ‘30s and Travis Banton was an innovator on the lips of the fashion conscious. Marlene Dietrich’s fabulous furs or feathers, putting the word in to bring Claudine Colbert to Hollywood and “throw(ing) a bolt of material at Carole” Lombard to make her look great, and there was that wary first meet with Mae West after his DA uncle had to toss her in jail… he went with her ‘overstated and overdone’ look that made her iconic.

But, his laziness in letting assistants finish the last touches and his alcoholism were sadly catching up to him when he had to leave Paramount and was briefly signed with 20th Century Fox in 1940. He later did some WWII “canteener” wartime women’s uniform designs, and retired from movie design in 1951 after doing successful period drama costumes on several movies. However, he wasn’t done and designed for Television fashion designing for Dinah Shore and Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame Chinese Red PJ theater fame. His Rosalind Russell designs sent him out with a bang.

All in all, this delve into the Old Hollywood fashion glam was a feast for the eyes and Banton’s designs and style has lived on with each old movie on TV or video reproduction, new shows pulling out of storage the old costumes for reuse, and lush, historical biography books like Howard Gutner’s Banton of Paramount to peruse.

Rating: 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

I rec’d a finished print copy from Globe Pequot to read in exchange for an honest review.

🧵👗🎬👡🪡

05/30/2026

Add SKINNING CATFISH IN MARYS KITCHEN to your tbr today 🎣🌲

05/26/2026

Author Howard Gutner at NYC’s iconic arthouse theatre Film Forum, introducing screenings of Hollywood classics and signing copies of his new book BANTON OF PARAMOUNT ✨

And the celebrations continue— he’ll return tomorrow for the Carole Lombard film Sinners in the Sun 🎬

08/27/2025

Watch the book trailer for Julia Bricklin's RED SAPPHIRE: THE WOMAN WHO BEAT THE BLACKLIST, available in paperback next week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-1Nqql4vE

03/26/2025

Register now for an exclusive author talk with Jill Dougherty, former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief and author of My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin, on May 24 at the Essex Library. Hear firsthand about her decades covering Russia, Vladimir Putin’s rise, and the unraveling of a nation she grew to love. Don’t miss this fascinating discussion!

Former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief, Jill Dougherty, will be at Essex Library to discuss her recently released book, My Russia. My Russia reveals Dougherty’s transformative journey from a Cold War–era obsession with Russia to witnessing firsthand the rise of Vladimir Putin and the unraveling of a nat...

03/18/2025

~Now Available~ FIRST WOMEN OF HOLLYWOOD by Mary Mallory

Largely created by immigrants, the film industry evolved over its first few decades thanks to the work of people outside the traditional ruling class—
immigrants, people of color, women—partly as a result of elites denigrating the fledgling field. As the moving picture industry transitioned from neophyte to powerhouse, young and ambitious rebels energized its output.

Mostly written out of history, women provided an important component for popularizing silent film and making it a financial success. Women were integral in producing entertaining films to keep up with exploding demand. Men often resented their power and success, and as the studio system took hold, women found themselves out of favor and replaced.

FIRST WOMEN OF HOLLYWOOD explores the invaluable contributions of these mostly forgotten and unacknowledged pioneers.