Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London


Lauren Elkin - 2015
    Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.That is an imaginary definition.'If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies


Michael Ausiello - 2017
    From his time at Soaps in Depth and Entertainment Tonight to his influential stints at TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly to his current role as co-founder of the wildly popular website TVLine.com, Michael has established himself as the go-to expert when it comes to our most popular form of entertainment.What many of his fans don’t know, however, is that while his professional life was in full swing, Michael had to endure the greatest of personal tragedies: his longtime boyfriend, Kit Cowan, was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of neuroendrocrine cancer. Over the course of eleven months, Kit and Michael did their best to combat the deadly disease, but Kit succumbed to his illness in February 2015.In this heartbreaking and darkly hilarious memoir, Michael tells the story of his harrowing and challenging last year with Kit while revisiting the thirteen years that preceded it, and how the undeniably powerful bond between him and Kit carried them through all manner of difficulty—always with laughter front and center in their relationship. Instead of a tale of sadness and loss, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies is an unforgettable, inspiring, and beautiful testament to the resilience and strength of true love.

I Shock Myself: The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood


Beatrice Wood - 2006
    With candour and insight, she recollects nearly ten decades of world-shaking events, heart breaking romances, and artistic achievement.

Too Much Is Not Enough


Andrew Rannells - 2019
    To start over. To transform the fiercely ambitious but sexually confused teenager he saw in the mirror into the Broadway leading man of his dreams. In Too Much Is Not Enough, Rannells takes us on the journey of a twentysomething hungry to experience everything: new friends, wild nights, great art, standing ovations. And at the heart of his hunger lies a powerful drive to reconcile the boy he was and the man he might have been with the man he wants to be. As Rannells reveals how he merged these Andrews into the one who made his Broadway debut at 26, he also shares stories from his path to the Great White Way, from horrible auditions and behind-the-curtain romances to the exhilaration of landing his first gig in Hairspray and the heartbreaking death of his father at the height of his ascent. Along the way, Rannells learns that you never really leave your past--or your family--behind; that the most painful, and perversely motivating, jobs are the ones you almost get; and that sometimes the most unforgettable nights are marked not by the hot clubs you danced at, but by the recap over diner food after. Filled with candor and humor, Too Much Is Not Enough is an entertaining look at love, loss, and the powerful forces that determine who we become.

Untold Stories


Alan Bennett - 2001
    A Common Assault describes an incident in Italy when he was mugged, and found himself trying to give a statement to the police in bad Italian. The History Boys harks back once more to Bennetts time at school, and shows how the raw material of experience was eventually transformed into the highly-acclaimed stage play The History Boys. Arise, Sir..., finishes on a light-hearted note, in which Bennett muses on the Honours List in typically iconoclastic mode.

Whatever... Love is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves


Maria Bello - 2015
    She made a compelling argument about the fluidity of partnerships, and how families today come in a myriad of designs. In her first book, Bello broadens her insights as she examines the idea of partnership in every woman’s life, and her own. She examines the myths that so many of us believe about partnership—that the partnership begins when the sex begins, that partnerships are static, that you have to love yourself before you can be loved, and turns them on their heads. Bello explores how many different relationships—romantic, platonic, spiritual, familial, educational—helped define her life. She encourages women to realize that the only labels we have are the ones we put on ourselves, and the best, happiest partnerships are the ones that make your life better, even if they don’t fit the mold of “typical.” Throughout this powerful and engaging read, Bello shares intimate stories and lessons on how she has come to discover her happiest self, accept who she is, and live honestly and freely, and tells the stories of those who came to her after her Times’ columns, grateful that someone gave voice to their life choices.Love is Love is not a memoir about an actress. It is a frank, raw, and honest book about the way every woman questions the roles she plays in love, work, and life, filled with wisdom, questions, and insights relevant to us all.

Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise


Paul Monette - 1994
    Brimming with outrage yet tender, this is a “remarkable book” (Philadelphia Inquirer).Puck --Gert --My priests --3275 --The politics of silence --Mustering --A one-way fare --Getting covered --Sleeping under a tree --Mortal things --Some afterthoughts

The Chiffon Trenches


André Leon Talley - 2020
    Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, André moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild's Women's Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta). But as André made friends, he also made enemies. A racially tinged encounter with a member of the house of Yves Saint Laurent sent him back to New York and into the offices of Vogue under Grace Mirabella.There, he eventually became creative director, developing an unlikely but intimate friendship with Anna Wintour. As she rose to the top of Vogue's masthead, André also ascended, and soon became the most influential man in fashion. The Chiffon Trenches offers a candid look at the who's who of the last fifty years of fashion. At once ruthless and empathetic, this engaging memoir tells with raw honesty the story of how André not only survived the brutal style landscape but thrived--despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry--to become one of the most renowned voices and faces in fashion.Woven throughout the book are also André's own personal struggles that have impacted him over the decades, along with intimate stories of those he has turned to for inspiration (Diana Vreeland, Diane von Férstenberg, Lee Radziwill, to name a few), and of course his Southern roots and ongoing faith, which have guided him since childhood.

Off the Map


Hib Chickena - 2002
    Wandering across that continent, the dozens of vignettes are the details of the whole - a squatted castle surrounded by tourists on the Spanish coast, a philosophizing businessman on the highways of France, a placa full of los crustos in Barcelona... Originating as a zine given out to a few friends in Prague, this has now received the Crimethinc. lavish production treatment, and clocks in at 146 pages, complete with photographs, illustrations and a cover featuring original artwork by Nikki McClure. Cometbus eat your heart out.

No Name in the Street


James Baldwin - 1972
    This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works.  In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain—the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation


E.H. Gombrich - 1960
    It seeks to answer a simple question: why is there such a thing as style? The question may be simple but there is no easy answer, and Professor Gombrich's brilliant and wide-ranging exploration of the history and psychology of pictorial representation leads him into countless crucial areas. Gombrich examines, questions and re-evaluates old and new ideas on such matters as the imitation of nature, the function of tradition, the problem of abstraction, the validity of perspective and the interpretation of expression: all of which reveal that pictorial representation is far from being a straightforward matter. First published more than 40 years ago, Art and Illusion has lost none of its vitality and importance. In applying the findings of experimental science to a nuanced understanding of art and in tackling complex ideas and theoretical issues, Gombrich is rigorous.Yet he always retains a sense of wonder at the inexhaustible capacity of the human brain, and at the subtlety of the relationships involved in seeing the world and in making and seeing art. With profound knowledge and his exceptional gift for clear exposition, he advances each argument as an hypothesis to be tested. The problems of representation are forever fundamental to the history of art: Art and Illusion remains an essential text for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of art. For the sixth edition Professor Gombrich has written an entirely new 12-page preface, in which he makes use of the distinction between an image and a sign, so as to clarify his intentions in writing the book in the first place.

The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf


Vita Sackville-West - 1985
    Their revealing correspondence leaves no aspect of their lives untouched: daily dramas, bits of gossip, the strains and pleasures of writing, and always the same joy in each other’s company. This volume, which features over 500 letters spanning 19 years, includes the writings of both of these literary icons.DeSalvo and Leaska established the chronological order of the letters and placed them in sequence, and they have also included relevant diary entries and letters Vita and Virginia wrote to other friends where they add context and illumination to the narrative. Annotations throughout the text identify peripheral characters, clarify allusions, and provide background. As the New York Times noted, "the result is a volume that reads like a book, not just a gathering of marvelous scraps."In his introduction Mitchell A. Leaska observes, "Rarely can a collection of correspondence have cast into more dramatic relief two personalities more individual or more complex; and rarely can an enterprise of the heart have been carried out so near the verge of archetypal feeling."

Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class


Michelle TeaLis Goldschmidt - 2004
    It was these concerns that prompted indie icon Michelle Tea--whose memoir The Chelsea Whistle details her own working-class roots in gritty Chelsea, Massachusetts--to collect these fierce, honest, tender essays written by women who can’t go home to the suburbs when their assignment is over. These wide-ranging essays cover everything from stealing and selling blood to make ends meet, to "jumping" class, how if time equals money then being poor means waiting, surviving and returning to the ghetto and how feminine identity is shaped by poverty. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Diane Di Prima, Terri Griffith, Daisy Hernández, Frances Varian, Tara Hardy, Shawna Kenney, Siobhan Brooks, Terri Ryan, and more.

Notes on the Cinematographer


Robert Bresson - 1975
    Robert Bresson makes some quite radical distinctions between what he terms "cinematography" and something quite different: "cinema"—which is for him nothing but an attempt to photograph theater and use it for the screen.Director of The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket, A Prisoner Escapes, Diary of a Country Priest, Money, and many other classic films, Robert Bresson is, quite simply, one of the most brilliant cinematographers in the history of film.

High-Risk Homosexual


Edgar Gomez - 2022
    In particular, effeminate queer men represent a simultaneous rejection and embrace of masculinity . . . In a world desperate to erase us, queer Latinx men must find ways to hold onto pride for survival, but excessive male pride is often what we are battling, both in ourselves and in others." A debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man, High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: Edgar Gomez’s uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at thirteen years old to become a man. Readers follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.” With vulnerability, humor, and quick-witted insights into racial, sexual, familial, and professional power dynamics, Gomez shares a hard-won path to taking pride in the parts of himself he was taught to keep hidden. His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy.