Lately you can’t shake a stick without hitting a boutique hotel promising Egyptian cotton linens, Kiehl’s products and flat-screen televisions. But there’s more to luxury than a well-appointed suite. That is why the proprietors at a string of new properties are turning their attention to common areas. More

Shadow is an alarm clock app for your phone that gently wakes you up and asks you to describe your dreams. Using speech-to-text technology, the software then catalogs the places, people and things you’ve dreamt about and adds them to its database. Think of it like a Fitbit ... More

In Kurt Sutter’s medieval drama The Bastard Executioner, Danny Sapani’s character, Berber the Moor, desperately clings onto his Muslim faith (behind closed doors) in Catholic 14th century Wales. But that’s not the only secret he keeps. Berber, an educated advisor and moral compass for the series’ main warrior Wilkin Brattle, holds ... More

The eco-friendly future of urban construction is here, and it looks a whole lot like an epic game of Jenga. In the last five years, 17 wood high-rises of seven stories or taller have been erected around the world, with at least a dozen even loftier projects currently in the works.  This ... More

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We live in a golden age of start-ups. But a great idea, a big influx of VC cash or fantastic name recognition is no guarantee for success. For every Spanx, Zipcar or Flickr, there's a Pets.com, kozmo.com or theglobe.com (remember those?) that crashed and burned. For his terrific new book ... More

In No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money, author David Lough reveals a lesser known side of Winston Churchill. Although the famous prime minister is certainly seen as a risk-taker by many for his fearless decision-making during World War II, the extent of the chances he took with his personal finances ... More

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It’s no secret that history is written by the victors, but TV shows about history might be an entirely different story. That’s exactly what happens on The Man in the High Castle, a new series from Amazon that charts what could have been if Germany had won World War ... More

As the Executive Director of a major LA-based nonprofit, Deborah Marcus regularly finds herself speaking before large groups of influential people. Her role at CISLA (Communities In Schools, Los Angeles)—the country’s top high school dropout prevention organization—requires presenting at A-list galas, raising funds from donors and running meetings ... More