There is no better time to swan around the eastern tip of Long Island than after “Tumbleweed Tuesday,” when all the summer people return to reality (also known as New York City) and locals—or wannabe locals, like this writer—can enjoy all that hallowed ground has to offer without the soul-crushing congestion. With no lines or crowds, one can finally savor the breakfast roti and Island Blue smoothie at Doubles Amagansett in peace—ideally while reading the police blotter in The East Hampton Star. A day that starts like this could never be a bad one. And for those who cannot escape reality, the Doubles team is bringing the mountain to Muhammad: a new Brooklyn Heights location is set to open soon. (doublesamg.com) —Victoria Herman

The Italian puffers that put Moncler on the map finally have a new home. It’s been almost 75 years since the brand found its footing in a small mountain village near Grenoble, France, first fashioning tents and sleeping bags for daredevil climbers. Now it lands on Fifth Avenue with its largest-ever flagship store. All 23,700 square feet of it is outfitted with an Ugo Rondinone sculpture, space-age displays, and enough winter gear to supply a Scandinavian Olympic team. To quote Fatboy Slim: “You’ve come a long way, baby!” (moncler.com) —Maggie Turner

No one spins a better true spy yarn than Ben Macintyre, as fans of Operation Mincemeat, Agent Sonya, and The Spy and the Traitor know so well. In his latest book, Redwood, Macintyre moves the action to Iran in the early 1980s, when revolutionary chaos reigned under Ayatollah Khomeini and Western intelligence agencies were eager for any tidbits of information. The British hit the jackpot with K.G.B. major Vladimir Kuzichkin, who worked in the Soviet Embassy in Tehran and, believe it or not, was desperate for help in solving his erectile dysfunction. He confided his problem to a junior M.I.6 officer named Ian McCredie, who promised medical help in return for secrets, most alarmingly the Soviet efforts to overthrow the new regime and bring Iran into Moscow’s orbit. Macintyre deftly sketches the personalities of those involved and perfectly captures the paranoia of those times, and he truly excels at describing the sweat-inducing mission to extract Kuzichkin, nicknamed “Redwood” for his imposing height, from Iran through Turkey and then on to England. This story has no happy ending. Washington tried to curry favor with Tehran by supplying them with the names of K.G.B. agents and collaborators in Iran, and soon thousands of members of the country’s Communist party were imprisoned and many of them killed. Kuzichkin became an acupuncturist in rural England under the name of Alexander Larkin, married, and had a child, but he could never give up his most loyal ally—vodka—and he died in 2009 at age 62 of a heart attack at his home in the English countryside, an empty bottle next to him. ($35, penguinrandomhouse.com) —Jim Kelly

John Baer, who served in the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion during World War II, received a Leica camera from a captured German soldier and took photos from 1945 to 1954. His work shows the aftermath of the war. In Europe, that looked like countries—including Germany, France, and Spain—rebuilding themselves literally from the ground up. In America, it looked like dutiful citizens gleefully shopping, working, and living in the center of postwar capitalism. After Baer’s death in 1996, his son, Andrew, discovered more than 4,000 of these negatives and prints. A new book, John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary—A Memoir in Photographs, showcases some of those images for the first time. ($65, johnbaerarchive.com) —Gabriella Maestri

The Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu pondered the tension between tradition and modernity within communities, families, and generations throughout his work, including the canonical Tokyo Story. His reverence for the everyday is as poignant as ever in his last film, An Autumn Afternoon. The 1962 masterpiece follows widower Shuhei (Chisu Ryu), who, in the wake of World War II and his wife’s death, realizes that he cannot keep his daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita), at home forever in order to provide him company and care. Shuhei eventually encourages Michiko to marry and leave their family home. The film’s elegant score, sauntering storyline, and sympathetic characters offer a tender farewell from one of the masters of classic cinema. (apple.com) —Eve Eismann

In 1996, a retired Stuyvesant High School English teacher named Frank McCourt published an account of his hardscrabble childhood in Limerick. The memoir, Angela’s Ashes, was a sensation, selling millions of copies and winning both a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer. Thirty years after Angela’s Ashes launched him into the literary limelight, a new book, Sez I to Myself, compiles McCourt’s lesser-known magazine articles and essays alongside those of his brother, Malachy McCourt, an actor and an author himself. Published between the 1970s and 2000s, the essays cover the immigrant experience, the writing life, teaching, eating, and drinking, all with that self-deprecating Irish humor. ($30, amazon.com) —Paulina Prosnitz