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5 days ago | airmail.news | Elena Clavarino

The 1980s, the fashion photographer David Bailey recalls, were “the first time the Americans wanted to come to London instead of Londoners wanting to go to New York.” And London delivered. The Rolling Stones. David Bowie. Elton John. As Mick Jagger’s American girlfriend Jerry Hall said, “Mick and I just really liked each other a lot. We talked all night.

5 days ago | airmail.news | Jim Kelly

No one will ever describe Ron Chernow as a miniaturist. He has written brick-size biographies of John D. Rockefeller, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton (read the book, then see the hip-hop version!), plus histories of the Morgan and Warburg banking dynasties. Mark Twain is his latest subject, and the book is an absolute delight to read, written with flair (no surprise there) and keen psychological insight about a surprisingly complicated man prone to depression.

5 days ago | airmail.news | Bruce Handy

“Not every girl is miserable. There are actually genuinely happy girls. I don’t come across them very often, but they do exist.” —Rosalind Wiseman, in her best-selling nonfiction book, Queen Bees & Wannabes, 2002Mean Girls, released in 2004, is the first teen movie of the 21st century to earn an indisputable spot in the canon. For one thing, Tina Fey’s tart, smart screenplay is as witty and quotable as Clueless’s—to my taste the teen comedy gold standard—but with a genuinely nasty bite all its own.

5 days ago | airmail.news | Ashley Baker

Browse The Perfect Does “perfect” mean something different to everyone? Not always, according to artist Courtney Broadwater, editor and writer Alexa Brazilian, and fashion designer Aaron Millhiser. They are doubling down on the notion with their Web site, The Perfect, an edit of the ultimate lifeguard hats, tennis skirts, barn jackets, and even vintage Bogner skiwear. The newsletter that accompanies their e-commerce site provides a thorough analysis of each far-flung find.

5 days ago | airmail.news | Jim Kelly

Read Looking for a Story At the age of 94, the creative-nonfiction pioneer John McPhee is still writing. Good news indeed. Here is more good news: in Looking for a Story, Noel Rubinton has tracked down pretty much everything written by McPhee—college papers, teleplays, short fiction, and hundreds of unsigned stories he did at Time before he joined The New Yorker, in 1963. The excerpts illustrate how he turned Time magazine’s pithiness into prose that shines—and occasionally stings.