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Awad writes novels with the cruel logic of fairy tales;as she put it, "All of them have a "Careful what you wishfor" quality." In Rouge, Belle is addicted to watching skin-carevideos; Awad said the book was inspired in part byYouTubers who throw their heads back in ecstasy overcertain products. FOUR YEARS ago, the novelist Mona Awad went toa high-end hotel spa for a facial that seemed to go on forhours. [Extracted from the article]

Lexi Freiman's latest novel, "The Book of Ayn," follows the story of Anna, a writer who is lightly canceled for her problematic book. Anna embarks on a journey to find happiness and purpose, joining edgelord socialites and discovering the work of Ayn Rand. The novel satirizes cancel culture and explores themes of personal freedom and individual responsibility. Freiman, known for her contrarian fiction, draws inspiration from provocative writers like Michel Houellebecq and finds affinity with Rand's audaciousness, despite recognizing the limitations in her thinking. The book is a joke-a-minute satire that delves into vanity, defensiveness, and the quest for transcendence. [Extracted from the article]

Henry St.) a steakhouse.'A chophouse is different because it'sneighborhood-y", says chef Chris McDade,who, along with partner James O'Brien,also runs the popular Popina nearby. FOOD FALL PREVIEW * For the first fall since 2019, there is an abundance ofnew places to eat and drink on the horizon as chefs arefinally able to put some long-gestating pre-pandemic plansinto action, revive once-closed favorites, or simply launchnew projects entirely. A Le Coucou Chef IsTaking Over Manhatta'sSky-high Kitchen As Le Coucou's chef de cuisine, Justin Boglewas responsible for turning out that restaurant'smenu of French throwbacks. [Extracted from the article]

The CULTURE PAGES CRITICS BOOKS HALFWAY THROUGH the novel Biography of X, the X inquestion--a brilliant performance artist, daringpolitical dissident, and, according to her biographer,kind of a cruel jerk--is described by David Byrne as"incapable of returning friendship." X'swife, C.M. Lucca, is the biographer--whichis to say Lacey's narrator. Except at the end of this book-within-a-book,behind a sheaf of gradated pages, an endnote gives thereal-life attribution to another Talking Heads member,Tina Weymouth--who was describing Byrne. [Extracted from the article]

This article from the New York journal provides a list of cultural recommendations for the period of April 22 to May 5, 2024. The recommendations include music, TV shows, classical performances, podcasts, art exhibitions, theater productions, movies, and books. The article aims to provide library patrons with a diverse range of options to explore in their research, including works by artists from different backgrounds and genres. [Extracted from the article]

The CULTURE PAGESTo DOBOOKS3. Read Ordinary Human Failings Breaking news.Little, Brown and Company, February 6.In 1990 London, the Green family, recent Irish immigrants, are caught up in a tabloid drama following a death in their community. What is meant to be a new start becomes another troubled chapter in their lives thanks to their neighbors' hostility and the naïve actions of a young journalist. Megan Nolan's second novel is a tender portrait of vulnerable people.By EMMA ALPERN [Extracted from the article]

The CULTURE PAGETo DoBOOKS6. Read The FetishistA new Humbert Humbert.G.P. Putnam's Sons, January 9.A young Japanese American punk singer stalks an older man in Baltimore, convinced that he--the titular fetishist--caused her mother's death, and she has her eye set on revenge. Katherine Min's posthumous novel is, as Cathy Park Hong's introduction has it, like a retelling of Lolita with all the queasy details of desire boldly recast.By EMMA ALPERN [Extracted from the article]

This article from the New York journal discusses the fashion choices of Brice Marden, a post-minimalist painter who recently passed away at the age of 84. Marden was known for his distinctive style of wearing black Levi's and a work jacket, and later added beanies to his look. These beanies, purchased by his family at Steven Alan and later Hermès, became a noticeable part of his persona. Marden would repair the hats with masking tape when they started to break down, reflecting his artist's mentality of valuing and reusing items. [Extracted from the article]

The CULTURE PAGES To Do BOOKS 8. Binyam joins Guernica editorAdam Dalva at Cobble Hill's favorite bookshop. Read Hangmanand See Maya Binyam An unsettling first novel. [Extracted from the article]

,by Kamila Shamsie(9/27) Decades after theymet in 1988 Karachi,two friends, nowin their 40s, are livingdistinct new Londonlives on the otherside of Pakistan'sturbulent 1990s: onethe director of a civil-rightsorganization,the other a VC titan. Shamsie moves amongseasons, locales, andperspectives withliquid ease, keepingus in suspenseuntil the very lastpage, ponderingwhether the bonds ofthis friendship canwithstand the slow-motiondetonation ofchildhood secrets. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. [Extracted from the article]

Suddenly unable to speak, a woman in Seoul joinsa Greek class with the hope an utterly new grammarwill shake her back into fluency. The latest novel from Han Kang, the virtuosicauthor of The Vegetarian. [Extracted from the article]

To Do The CULTURE PAGES BOOKS 11. The latest from Curtis Sittenfeld, who wrotePrep and American Wife, is like fictionalizedcelebrity gossip. Sally, a nerdy sketch writer at a late-night comedyshow called The Night Owls (think SNLor--okay, it's SNL), starts a flirtation with amusical guest after watching her unexceptionalmale co-workers date celebrity after celebrity. [Extracted from the article]

To Do The CULTURE PAGES BOOKS 9. Jenny Odell's latest is a consideration of time thatbounds from the meaning of church bells topresent-day methods for optimizing everymoment of our lives--always with an eye to theholdouts against temporal order. Read Saving Time Clocking out. [Extracted from the article]

A Russian immigrant mother and her Black teenagedaughter plant unsteady roots in a Californiatrailer park, one of many homes they've passedthrough together. Read A CountryYou Can Leave The latest exiles to the Golden State. Asale Angel-Ajani's firstnovel--she's also written about the internationaldrug trade--captures the defensive chill of theirrelationship. [Extracted from the article]

British singer-songwriter Rex Orange Countymelds rock, pop, R&B, and hip-hop into a pleasant,pliable personal style that made admirers and collaboratorsout of Tyler, the Creator and Pino Palladino.These new tracks slip coolly between exquisiteorchestral moments and bubbly pop hooks. Domee Shi's Pixar feature debut, TurningRed, is the centerpiece screening, and Apollo 10 1/2,a moon-landing movie from Richard Linklater, isthe closing-night film. Last year, Tamara Lindeman's folk band theWeather Station wowed listeners with Ignorance,a lush rock album about climate anxiety. Thetruth--as scholar Rian Thum writes in the introductionto this collection of Tohti's interviews,essays, and personal writing--is Tohti is internedfor the "content of his writings.". [Extracted from the article]

Victory City: A display of strength and endurance. Read Victory City A display of strength and endurance. In 14th-century southern India, 9-year-oldPampa Kampana has an encounter with deaththat makes her a conduit for her namesake goddess;after she learns how to wield the deity'spower, she builds a dazzling city over the courseof hundreds of years. [Extracted from the article]

The CULTURE PAGES To Do Twenty-fivethings to see,hear, watch,and read JANUARY 4-18 BOOKS11. Janet Malcolm's posthumous memoir uses photographs,many of them of herself and her Czechfamily members, who left Europe for the U.S. in1939, as its guides, preserving all the inscrutabilityof memory. [Extracted from the article]

Resoketswe Manenzhe's disquieting debut noveldescribes imperfect people caught in the indifferentthrust of history. In 1927, a new law explicitly barring interracialmarriage threatens to pry apart a South Africancouple whose connection is already tenuous. The CULTURE PAGES To Do BOOKS 11. [Extracted from the article]

October'sThe Passenger deals with two siblings' darklyinterconnected dynamic; Stella Maris, its shortercompanion and exegesis, is made up mostly ofconversations between one half of the pair, who isa profoundly gifted mathematician, and her therapistin a psychiatric hospital. The CULTURE PAGES To Do BOOKS 2. Sixteen years after The Road, Cormac McCarthyhas emerged with a pair of new novels. [Extracted from the article]

To Do The CULTURE PAGES BOOKS 9. Johanne Lykke Holm's novel, translated fromSwedish by Saskia Vogel, is all atmosphere,scents, and whispers among a cohort of youngwomen on the violent border of adulthood. There, they begin a ritual of"false labor" absent of guests, washing sheets andwandering the halls of the mostly empty building. [Extracted from the article]

J.C. The Short List SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL This year's fest is online only--for thefirst time ever. Watch We Need toTalk About Cosby W. Kamau Bell dissects Dr. Huxtable. Janet Jackson also has somethingelse that the FX doc didn't: new interviews withthe artist herself. This career doc has a broader focus than Malfunction:The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson,The New York Times Presents episode focused onthe way she was treated after the 2004 SuperBowl mishap. [Extracted from the article]

An unnamed narrator in an unnamed city rents aroom from a painter. Soon, the painter becomeserratic, as does her art: white paint on white canvases. Aysegül Savas's novel, a high-minded, slow-movingthriller, asks whether art conceals orreveals its maker--and describes in lurid detailthe horrors of creative work. [Extracted from the article]

Mary Alice Roth, a reluctantly retired high-schoolmath teacher, is a difficult figure in her small, gossipyTexas town: Her prickliness covers up manyyears spent grieving two tragic family deaths,something that few people in her life fully understand. Weekly co-hostBobby Finger carries his dry but affectionatevoice, which comes through just as strongly hereas it does over AirPods. The CULTURE PAGES To Do DANCE BOOKS 16. [Extracted from the article]

Salaun, who designs most ofthe pieces sold at her four shops, began her career as anoptician in Paris, opened her first Selima Optique herein 1993, and has since amassed a following among not onlycelebrities but also designers and stylists: MickeyDrexler has worn the square-shaped Mike frames ($385) for20 years now, Carolyn Kennedy long sported the lowset,round Aldos ($385), and Marni creative director FrancescoRisso wore a pair of clear Sarahs (the shop has only afew "vintage" pairs left, for $650) to the Met Gala.Selima eyewear is "quirky but fashionable", says bookpublicist Sheila O'Shea, who adds that the NewWave-inspired profiles and color choices make them feeldistinct from the more bookish styles seen at othershops. BEST OF NEW YORK The Best EYEGLASSES SHOPS SELIMA OPTIQUEmultiple locations;selimaoptique.com JOHN TURTURRO WASN'T NECESSARILY looking to buy newglasses when he met Selima Salaun, owner of SelimaOptique, through a friend in the late '90s. Stylist Michelle Li compares shopping at Selima to"walking into the wand shop from Harry Potter", where theshopkeeper has a preternatural sense for matching themerchandise to the customer; in Li's case, the Selimastaff sold her on a thickrimmed tortoiseshell pair thatshe never would have expected to fit her small face, butit did, perfectly. [Extracted from the article]

The shop was on the way tohis office, and it's hard to miss: StudioOptix is known for out-therestyles like periwinkle Sabineframes with blocky brows ($425);ice-blue Voltas with a jagged, crystallineshape, by Oscar Mamooi($750); and Lucas de Stäel framesmade from leather, stone, and animalskins (from $900). The Optix stylists usually show mesomething I think I want, maybe ina more conventional shade, andthen they'll show me something Ididn't know I wanted, like the thin,round, inky-blue-striped pair I'mwearing these days". BEST OF NEW YORK The Best EYEGLASSES SHOPS STUDIO OPTIX, 63 W. 49th St.;studiooptix.com WFMU DJ GAYLORD FIELDSfirst found Studio Optix in the1990s, when he was a politicalresearcher working in RockefellerCenter. [Extracted from the article]

ButCadmus says the real reason shetakes clients to Moscot is the store'sconcierge-like setting: "They sort ofread you when you come in", shesays, "and they're eternally ready tostep in at any moment and talkabout the product--how it holds upover time, all its specifications--withoutever being overbearing."Chris Black, co-host of the podcastHow Long Gone (and a contributorto The Strategist), agrees: "The realappeal of Moscot is absolutely theservice", he says, noting that actualmembers of the Moscot family willoften help you. MOSCOT, multiple locations;moscot.com STYLIST JESSICA CADMUS likesto bring her C-suite clients shoppingwith her--especially for eyewear--andMoscot's flagship on the LowerEast Side is her optical shop ofchoice. "And the framesthemselves are classic", adds Black,who, before getting Lasik last year,had four Moscots in rotation.". [Extracted from the article]

FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. ,by Namwali Serpell(9/27) Serpell's second novelfollows 12-year-oldCassandra, whose7-year-old brother goesmissing and whosemother refuses to giveup hope while hisbody goes unrecovered;the ensuing turmoilis a gorgeous, surrealmeditation on identityand mourning,one that squeezesthe heartstrings andrarely relaxes its grip. [Extracted from the article]

Bird, 12, whoseChinese Americanmother was one of a"dangerous" group of"dissidents", gives thenovel an almostfolkloric quality,complete with a crypticcall to adventure, anunderground networkof coded messages, andthe aid of a mysteriousduchess. ,by Celeste Ng(10/4) Ng goes fullydystopian: Herpost-recession Americahas passed China-scapegoatinglawsbanning books andincreasing surveillance. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED OCT. [Extracted from the article]

,by Maggie O'Farrell(9/6) For her latest journeyback to the 16thcentury, O'Farrelltakes inspirationfrom a source anyEnglish major shouldrecognize--RobertBrowning's 1842 poem"My Last Duchess"-andexplores the lifeand mysterious deathof Lucrezia de' Medici,who was married off toa duke at 15. Togglingbetween Lucrezia'slavish upbringing andthe crumbling of herunion, O'Farrell knowshow to take themost sumptuousliberties with history. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. [Extracted from the article]

,by Margaret WilkersonSexton(9/6) Louisiana-bredmatriarch and widowVivian, havingsettled in San Franciscoduring the GreatMigration, molds herdaughters into adynamic musical triocalled the Salvations.But resisting Vivian'sunrelenting instructionand the powerfulsiren song of Negroexceptionalism, herdaughters reimaginethe biblical epigraphthat a parent trainsup her children in theway they should go. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. [Extracted from the article]

Stella Maris,acting as a coda,revisits Western'sschizophrenic sister,Alicia, whose deathby suicide opensthe book. The Passengerand Stella Maris,by Cormac McCarthy(12/6) The grim soothsayerof the absurd is backwith his first novelsin nearly 20 years. The Passenger tellsthe story of NewOrleans salvage diverBobby Western,whose investigationof a private planecrash in the Gulfimmediately suggestsfoul play. [Extracted from the article]

With the recentrebirth of the so-calledcharismatic leader infigures like Trump,Putin, Xi, and Erdogan,Kershaw's inquiry intothe political climbs ofbig personalities--andthe impositions of theirwills--could beinstructive in what toexpect from the "strongleaders" of today. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED NOV. Personality and Power,by Ian Kershaw(11/15) British historianKershaw, an expert onHitler and NaziGermany, brings adozen of the 20thcentury's mostpowerful and notoriousEuropean leaderstogether in his newbook to explore howmuch any individualmight single-handedlychange the course ofhistory. [Extracted from the article]

Her earlier books, saidto be the firstDagestani novelspublished in English,offer insight into theintersection ofMoscow's authoritarianpolitics and Russia'sIslamic separatistmovements. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED NOV. Offended Sensibilities,by Alisa Ganieva(11/8) In Ganieva's latest book(translated from theRussian by CarolApollonio), set afterPussy Riot's 2012performance inside aMoscow cathedral thatled to the members'arrest and to Russia'senacting a law thatbanned blasphemy oranything that overtlyaims to offend religioussensibilities, a series ofRussian officials begindying mysteriously. [Extracted from the article]

Thispaean, an art objectreminiscent of achapbook or a novella,goes down like a tinyfruit tart made from akeenly demarcatedrecipe: complex,ambrosial, and brief. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED NOV. ,by Hilton Als(11/1) Originally published asan essay in Harper's, is smart,sensual writing on a lifeof loving Prince and onthe life of Princehimself. [Extracted from the article]

FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED OCT. Come Back inSeptember,by Darryl Pinckney(10/25) When Columbiaundergrad Pinckneyhaphazardly (butsuccessfully) enrolledin ElizabethHardwick's creative-writingcourse acrossthe street at Barnard,he kicked off adecades-longmentorship andfriendship. Come forthe intimate portraitof a cross-generational bondforged through theexcitement of 1970sliterary New York andthe upheaval of theAIDS crisis; stay forthe compelling (and,at times, scandalous)rendering of a culturalmilieu thatsimultaneously feelsbygone andspectacularly familiar. [Extracted from the article]

FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED OCT. They'reburdened with pastsfor which they don'tmake excuses yetseem unable toescape. ,by Manuel Munoz(10/18) In Munoz's newcollection of shortstories, his daylaborers, teachers,and teenage mothersnavigate love'sdifficulties among themundane frustrationsof everyday living inwhich poverty,alienation, or deathare less plot elementsand more a baselineof suffering withwhich they mustcontend. [Extracted from the article]

With a newintroduction fromKeeanga-YamahttaTaylor, the25th-anniversaryedition of thispath breaking work ofscholarship is a gift tothose interested inthinking deeply andexpansively aboutslavery's ever-runningmachinations. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED OCT. Scenes of Subjection,by Saidiya Hartman(10/11) In Scenes of Subjection,Hartman argues thatsubjugation of theenslaved not only tookmany forms--fromphysical violence toother, more covertmeans of disciplineand punishment likeforced frivolity andimagined "bonds ofaffection" betweenenslavers and theenslaved--but that itcontinued to constrainwhat was possible forBlack people evenafter emancipation. [Extracted from the article]

FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. ,by ErnestoMestre-Reed(9/6) Following hisboyfriend's death fromHIV, Rafa has to makesense of the secretshis lover left behindin Cuba; he putshis grief to work as hegrapples with thecounterrevolutionarydeeds of the deceasedand the death-dealingof the state thatlooms over them all. [Extracted from the article]

I Fear My PainInterests You,by Stephanie LaCava(9/27) In/Fear My PainInterests You, Margot,the daughter ofmusicians, takes leaveof New York City tosearch for a betterfuture in the PacificNorthwest whilefleeing her past.It's in her new environswhere she encountersa doctor, some filmreels, and the truthbehind her family'ssecrets. Let yourselfbe lured into LaCava'sstylized settings,her exploration of1960s cinema, and herbodily absurdities. [Extracted from the article]

But when Kenis killed in a carjackingjust a few yearslater, Hsu can onlyfully reckon withthe tragedy in the wayhe best knows how-bywriting. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. ,by Hua Hsu(9/27) Early in his UCBerkeley days, Hsudevelops a fast,profound friendshipwith a frat boy namedKen. [Extracted from the article]

On the Inconvenienceof Other People,by Lauren Berlant(9/23) The first installment ofa planned trilogy, thisis a work of andabout the congestedtableau of everyday life.To read Berlant isalways to be provoked,unsettled, pried loosefrom what theymemorably lanced as"comb-over" thinking. FALL PREVIEW 2022 MOST ANTICIPATED SEP. [Extracted from the article]