Staff Picks
Don’t miss profiles of 31 little-known New Yorkers; the story of how Sesame Street was adapted for Russian TV; and a cookbook from the Via Carota chefs
Hot Topic
Ever since Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, there has been speculation about their relationship. A new book attempts to set the record straight
Leave the Gun, Take the Cocktail
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, a maître d’hôtel for Brooklyn’s River Café recalls getting on the wrong side of a mobster from the Gotti crime family—and how he lived to tell the tale
Murder, They Wrote
As the holiday season approaches, gifts for mystery book–lovers of every type
“Why Can’t You Write Normal?”
Kathy Acker’s journey from daughter of Sutton Place to genre- and gender-bending cult novelist
Neighborhood Watch
Michael Kimmelman, the New York Times architecture critic and lifelong New Yorker, discusses the old Village and new downtowns
Acquired Taste
The granddaughter of the River Cafe’s Ruthie Rogers discovers the thrill of cooking, one page at a time
The Power and the Glory
In 1985, G.E. purchased RCA for $6.3 billion in cash, then the largest M&A deal of all time. That G.E. was actually buying back a business it had started 65 years earlier was largely forgotten
Dreams in Progress
A new book celebrates Hollywood’s greatest behind-the-scenes photographer
Crime Pays
He’s written 37 books and sold more than 80 million copies—yet The New York Times still won’t give Michael Connelly’s well-crafted and timely whodunits a proper review
Broken Images
T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is the rare modernist masterpiece that still feels modern
Not Your Father’s Ghostwriter
Unfortunately for the royal family, J. R. Moehringer, Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, specializes in damaged father-son relationships
Out of Step
While researching his book about the dance company Ballet Russes, Rupert Christiansen stumbled upon a dance critic’s account of their awkward interview
Mystery Man
Eight Questions with Anthony Horowitz, the man behind Foyle’s War and Agatha Christie’s Poirot, a series of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond novels, and his own mystery TV show
The Wilder West
Post–Civil War, while most white settlers were eager to push American Indians off their land, General William Sherman advocated for the tribes
Half Myth, Half Man
The author of a new biography of Bo Jackson, an elusive star of both the N.F.L. and M.L.B., didn’t obtain his subject’s participation, but he got the next best thing: 720 original interviews
