HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

Maureen Dowd dares to ponder—in this golden age of the turkey baster, when everyday women are mastering the art of minor plumbing and auto repair, Are Men Necessary? (Putnam).

Also this month... Let's have a wolf whistle for Cary Grant as a falsieswearing war bride, Dustin Hoffman as a soap-opera actress: Jean-Louis Ginibre's saucy Ladies or Gentlemen (Filipacchi) is a divine (yes, her too) history of cross-dressing in the movies. How Jewish are you? In Abigail Pogrebin'sStars of David (Broadway), prominent Jews such as Natalie Portman and Leonard Nimoy speak to their religious identity. Meanwhile, in Bar Mitzvah Disco (Crown), editors Roger Bennett, Jules Shell, and Niclc Kroll share harrowing "survivors' tales" from the 70s to the 90s. Ben Schott shoots the moon in Schott's Sporting, Gaming & Idling Miscellany (Bloomsbury). Quirky, over-the-moon illustrator Maira Kalman enlivens William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White's classic primer on writing in The Elements of Style Illustrated (Penguin). On a quest for the sublime Untrodden Grapes (Harcourt), Ralph Steadman unearths vineyards seeded on inhospitable hillsides around the world. In celebration of winning the Neglected Masters Award, from the Poetry Foundation, Samuel Menashe takes a victory lap with New and Selected Poems (Library of America). As ever, Robert Coover bewitches, bothers, and bewilders in his collection of short stories A Child Again (McSweeney's Books). At 92, Gordon Parks chalks up his success to A Hungry Heart (Atria). The singularly talented Spalding Gray was working on his monologue Life Interrupted (Crown), a recounting of the crippling physical and psychological effects of his car accident, when he tragically took his own life. Edited by Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Torture (New Press) is not recommended reading but required reading. Spun like a modern-day fairy tale, Mary Gaitskill'sVeronica (Pantheon), set against the surreal backdrop of Manhattan in the 1980s, captures the complexity and pain of a lost friendship. The ever enlightening Walter Kirn's new satirical novel is on a Mission to America (Doubleday).

Dennis Altman boldly forges Gore Vidal's America (Polity). Paige Rense edits Architectural Digest: Hollywood at Home (Abrams). Gyles Brandreth heralds the royal marriage of Philip and Elizabeth (Norton). Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler edit Women's Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present (Dial). Joseph Sterling's photographs from 1959 to 1964 revel in The Age of Adolescence (Greybull). Terry Coleman offers one more curtain for the great Olivier (Henry Holt). Bob Spitz's biography of The Beatles (Little, Brown) paints a less-lollipop picture of the Fab Four. Canadian journalist Hadani Ditmars recalls her travels through post-invasion Iraq in Dancing in the No-Fly Zone (Raincoast).