Grit and Glam
From tabloid shots in New York to portraits of Hollywood stars, the Ukrainian photographer Weegee did it all
The Kid Stays Out of the Picture
In a secluded monastery perched high above the Pacific, one writer discovered the monk’s greatest gifts: Bob Evans and getting away from it all
Poetry in Motion
A new coffee-table book pays homage to Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures with a selection of works from the American artist’s most prolific period
Maeve Brennan’s New York
The collected stories of a mid-20th-century Irish writer in Manhattan recall a bygone era of Truman Capote and 50-cent martinis
Past and Presents
Dollhouses, paper angels, fir trees … A new coffee-table book looks back at a century of holiday photographs from around the world
Candid Camera
Inside the 1972 trial that pitted Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis against New York’s most unrelenting paparazzo, Ron Galella
The Queen of Caricature
Before Nora Ephron and Gay Talese, there was Kate Carew, a cartoonist who sat down with everyone from Mark Twain to Picasso
AIR MAIL’s 10 Best Mystery Books of 2024
Death and deceit in Ireland from Tana French and John Banville! An L.A.P.D. cold case! A wicked widow! And much more …
Deadly Pleasures to Read and Watch
Hunker down with the holiday season’s best mysteries
AIR MAIL’s Best Coffee-Table Books of 2024
Dazzling volumes on Rosario Candela’s New York City penthouses and David Hockney’s works on paper, plus photography collections from Ernest Cole, Eve Arnold, and Ruth Orkin and a look inside an Italian home or two
AIR MAIL’s 10 Best Books of 2024
Percival Everett’s twist on Huckleberry Finn; biographies of Reagan and Isherwood, Didion, and Babitz; and more holiday reading for every type
A Boy’s Best Friend …
At Andy Warhol’s suggestion—“she’s so-o-o interesting”—a biographer pulls back the curtain on the artist’s mother, an unsung painter in her own right
Concrete Jungles
From Marcel Breuer’s early modernist designs to Le Corbusier’s pocket gardens, two new books speak to the enduring allure of brutalism
How to Write like Harlan Coben
The best-selling author shares the tricks he uses to craft a page-turner—from conjuring up villains to landing the big ending
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a history of George Frideric Handel’s popular Christmas oratorio, an examination of old age in America, and an artist’s collection of stories and paintings
The Decline and Fall of the Campus Novel
Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and Tom Sharpe used universities as their preferred vehicle for satire. But are modern colleges too ridiculous to parody?
America’s Sweethearts
A new coffee-table book presents a visual history of the United States from the 1940s to today, courtesy of Magnum photographers
