THE PARIS NOVEL
By Ruth Reichl
Random House
A dazzling, heartfelt adventure through the food, art, and fashion scenes of 1980s Paris is authored by former food critic, Ruth Reichl of the New York Times.
Stella reached for an oyster. It was fantastic and slippery, and the flavor was so salty that it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?
When her estranged mother dies, Stella has an unusual inheritance: a plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has confined her to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns to honor her mother’s last wishes.
Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella, and for the first time in her life, Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress—and embarks on an adventure.
Her first stop is the iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces Stella to a veritable person from the Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, she begins to understand what living a more significant life might mean.
As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at the famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company. She uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a painting. She also discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. The novel is a feast for the senses.
HOW TO WALK INTO A ROOM
The Art Of Knowing When To Stay
And When To Walk Away
By Emily P. Freeman
HarperCollins Publishers
Bestselling author Emily P. Freeman, offers guidance to when it’s time to move on from situations that no longer fit, allowing us to discover spaces where we can flourish and grow.
What do you do when you start to feel a shift and must decide if it’s time to change? When navigating big decisions about when to stay and go, how can we know when the time is right? Though we enter and exit many rooms throughout our lives—jobs, relationships, life stages—knowing how and when it’s time to leave is a decision that rarely has an answer.
How to Walk into a Room will help you identify the caution flags in your current spaces, and navigate endings even when there is no closure, find peace when you feel ready but it isn’t time, and courage when it’s time but you don’t feel ready.
For anyone standing on a threshold, here’s a book to help discern the how, when, and what of walking out of rooms and into new ones with peace and a whole lot of confidence.
INDULGE
Delicious and Decadent Dishes To Enjoy And Share
By Valerie Bertinelli
HarperCollins Publishers
Beloved actress Valerie Bertinelli returns with her most indulgent cookbook yet: 100 recipes to nourish the body and the soul.
When Valerie Bertinelli turned 60, she said, “Enough already!” and ended her battle with the scale for good. She stopped counting calories. Valerie stopped thinking of certain foods as good or bad. She quit saying no and began saying yes, finally learning to enjoy the pure pleasure of being alive – starting in the kitchen. In short, she learned how to indulge.
With this gorgeous cookbook, Valerie shares her secrets for indulging so you can start living your best, most fulfilling life, too. Whether you splurged on fresh produce at the farmer’s market, cooked an extravagant steak dinner for one, or served an ice cream sundae bar at a dinner party, this book reminds you that indulging can take many shapes and forms.
You’ll discover the delicious recipes she cooks for her friends and family, including favorites like Garlic Confit BLT, Oven “Fried” Okra, Sausage and Olive Cheese Bites, Salmon Burgers with Quick-Pickled Vegetables, Filet Mignon with Béarnaise Sauce and Chocolate Peanut Butter Dates, and more.
Written in Valerie’s warmhearted and intimate style—including heartfelt essays about savoring big and small moments—this cookbook is a permission slip to enjoy food and—and more importantly—life
THE FIXER
Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars And Marilyn
By Josh Young & Manfred Westphal
Grand Central Publishing
A riveting tell-all biography that delves into the extraordinary life of Hollywood’s most infamous private detective and “fixer” to the stars, revealing newly discovered shocking revelations from his never-before-seen investigative files.
During the height of Hollywood’s golden age, one man lorded over the city’s lurid underbelly of forbidden sin and celebrity scandal like no other: Fred Otash. An ex-Marine turned LAPD vice cop, Otash became the most sought-after private detective and fixer to the stars by specializing in the dark arts that would soon dominate the entertainment industry.
Otash was notorious for bugging the homes, offices, and playpens of movie stars, kingmakers, and influential politicians, employing then state-of-the-art methods of electronic surveillance and wiretapping for a who’s who list of clients for whom he’d do “anything short of murder.” He lied to federal authorities to protect Frank Sinatra from criminal liability; recorded Rock Hudson’s coming out confession to his estranged wife; moved in with Judy Garland to help her get sober; taped President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s tragic love affairs with the most incredible sex symbol of all time, and he listened to Marilyn Monroe die. It’s definitely a must-read.
DOUBLE CLICK
Twin Photographers In The Golden Age Of Magazines
By Carol Kino
Scribner
This book reveals the identical twin sisters who became groundbreaking photographers in New York during the glamorous magazine golden age of the 1930s and 40s.
The McLaughlin twins were trailblazing female photographers, celebrated as stars in their respective fields at the time but largely forgotten since. In Double Click, author Carol Kino provides a fascinating window into the golden era of magazine photography and the first young women’s publications, bringing these two brilliant women and their remarkable accomplishments to vivid life.
Frances was the only female photographer in Condé Nast’s photo studio, hired just after Irving Penn, and became known for streetwise, cinema verité-style work, appearing in Glamour and Vogue’s pages. Her sister Kathryn’s surrealistic portraits filled the era’s new “career girl” magazines, including Charm and Mademoiselle. Both twins married Harper’s Bazaar photographers and socialized with a glittering crowd, including the supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives and photographer Richard Avedon. Kino uses their careers to illuminate the lives of young women during this time, an early twentieth-century moment marked by proto-feminist thinking, excitement about photography’s burgeoning creative potential, and the ferment of wartime New York. Toward the end of the 1940s and moving into the early 1950s, conventionality took over, women were pushed back into the home, and the window of opportunity began to close. Kino renders this fleeting moment of possibility in gleaming multi-color so that the reader cherishes its abundance, mourns its passing, and gains a new appreciation for the talent fostered at its peak.