HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

In Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants (Miramax), VF.'s own James Wolcott hounds the celebrity pundits and their right-wing masters who serve the public infotainment and tell them it's news. If you can't run with the big dogs—that is, report the truth—then stay on the porch.

Gone but hardly forgotten: Endlessly curious and always game, beloved editor and writer George Plimpton was one of a kind; The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair (Random House), edited by his wife, Sarah Dudley Plimpton, collects the best of his best. Marc Eliot'sCary Gram (Harmony) makes clear that Hollywood will never produce another actor as charming as the sparkling Archibald Leach. As Simon Doonan recalls, before the Brillo boxes there was Andy Warhol Fashion (Chronicle). In The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll (Henry Holt), Jean Nathan uncovers the glamorous, doomed life of Dare Wright, the haunted, childlike author. Mary V. Dearborn paints a life-size portrait of the nymphomaniacal art collector Peggy Guggenheim, the Mistress of Modernism (Houghton Mifflin).

Also this month: editor David Remnick, a fan of the classic New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling, introduces Just Enough Liebling (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Perfumer extraordinaireMandy Aftel and gifted chef Daniel Patterson combine their alchemic talents for the senses-stirring cookbook Aroma (Artisan). The Broadway comedies of such humor giants as George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber take a curtain call in Kaufman & Co. (Library of America). Terry Gross'sAll I Did Was Ask (Hyperion) is an encore presentation of her most entertaining NPR Fresh Air interviews. Sylvia Plachy'sSelf Portrait with Cows Going Home (Aperture) documents 40 years' worth of the photographer's trips back to her native Eastern Europe. Photographer George Butler creates a vibrant and intimate portrait of the Democratic contender, Vietnam vet, and esteemed senator John Kerry (Bulfinch). Vicki Gold Levi and Steven Heller capture a hundred glittering years of Times Square Style (Princeton Architectural). Paul Goldberger'sUp from Zero (Random House) is a blueprint of the rebuilding of one of New York City's most hallowed plots of land. The tragicomic stories in David Means'sThe Secret Goldfish (Fourth Estate) are piloted by such disparate characters as MMHiiMlrittiifl a man pursued by lightning and a disconsolate goldfish. Toure fulfills his promise in his inventive debut novel, Soul City (Little, Brown), named for an African-American Utopia where the content of a man's character can bring him down. The desperate hero of Arthur Phillips'sThe Egyptologist (Random House) is hell-bent on excavating the crypt of an apocryphal king. Hard Case Crime's new pulp-fiction series (featuring old classics and new titles) takes aim with Max Phillips'sFade to Blonde. In Orhan Pamuk'sSnow (Knopf), a Turkish poet is drawn to a small border town and into the storm of a military coup. Uncoupling expert Avery Cormon, author of Kramer vs. Kramer, dispels the myth of A Perfect Divorce (St. Martin's). Old man of the meter Donald Justice comes full circle in Collected Poems (Knopf). Jonathan Tisch (with Karl Weber) expounds on how to succeed through building partnerships in The Power of We (Wiley). A Glass Half Full exposes Felix Dennis, publisher of Maxim, for what he really is: a poet. Take the word of the American Society of Magazine American Magazine 2004 (Perennial). Patrick McMullan'sInTents (Powerhouse) is your all-access pass to life under Fashion Week's big tent. With her trademark savage wit. New York Times star editorialist Maureen Dowd reminds us that, until we vote him out, it's Bushwor/d (Putnam) we just live in it. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. puts forth a scorching assessment of the president's Crimes Against Nature (HarperCollins). MSNBC's Joe Scarborough'sRome Wasn't Burnt in a Day (HarperCollins) is a bipartisan call to arms for political reform. Were HI!!!! The biggest deficit in U.S. history, the steepest drop in the stock market, and the most staggering loss of respect worldwide ever!Graydon Carter, VF.'s editor, tallies up What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Hey, where's my big foam finger?

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