What Do Famous People’s Bookshelves Reveal?

Bibliophiles do not approach bookshelves lightly. A stranger’s collection is to us a window to their soul. We peruse with judgment, sometimes admiration and occasionally repulsion (Ayn Rand?!). With celebrities now frequently speaking on television in front of their home libraries, a voyeuristic pleasure presents itself: Are they actually really like us? Cate Blanchett ImageCredit…CBS…

No One to Hunker Down With

Three days before the governor of my state issued his stay at home order, the 45-year-old man I’d been dating for a month told me he was self-isolating. “But we saw each other yesterday!” I said. “We ate in a restaurant!” He would have none of it. “Don’t try to use your logic on me,”…

It’s Time at Luxury Resale Sites

A few months ago, before nonessential stores were closed, Karen Oberman, a department store personal shopper who lives just north of New York City, bought a timepiece she had admired for a while: a white ceramic and stainless steel Chanel J12 Phantom, a 38-millimeter watch with a skeletonized back. She purchased it through the RealReal,…

Their Met Gala, Their Way. You’re Invited.

This is the time of year when, in the normal course of 21st-century events, an army of stylists, makeup artists, florists, designers and celebrities would be about to descend on the Carlyle and Mark hotels in New York, clogging the elevators with garment bags bearing the hautest names: Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Versace.…

Drawing Places, Capturing Memories

Mountains, clouds, shadows receding; a few minutes of pencil on paper and John had caught the moment’s essence while the rest of us scrabbled to take a photograph of the first light touching Mount Kanchenjunga. We were watching dawn reaching the world’s third highest mountain from Tiger Hill, the highest point in Darjeeling, India. By…

Let’s Bury the Hatchet!

It was long overdue, the apology phone call. The last time the Frolkis sisters, Talia and Liza, had exchanged any words was July 2019. And that conversation had ended on, well, less than good terms. Not that Talia, 32, the younger sibling, a biomedical scientist in Madison, Wis., can say exactly what the tiff was…