HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELLL

Good people, be assured that this column is 100 percent crony-free. Not one author who has ever lent me money, or who is a dear old friend of my mother's, in the lot, which isn't to say I'm not keen to cultivate one or two of these fine folks ...

Speaking of cultivation, David Castronovo and Janet Groth's Critic in Love (Shoemaker & Hoard) is a romantic biography of Edmund Wilson, detailing his shagfests with luscious luminaries Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary McCarthy, and others, as well as satisfying nights on the town with drinking buddies Dorothy Parker and Dawn Powell. Big kiss.

"Don't fear failure, and don't overestimate success ...," Ernest Hemingway advises A. E. Hotchner, who has compiled their correspondence in Dear Papa, Dear Hotch (University of Missouri). Unlikely rap impresario Nik Cohn's Triksta (Knopf) gives props to the enigmatic world of New Orleans hip-hop. After slipping on his essay-writing hat, David Foster Wallace sits down to truly and deeply Consider the Lobster (Little, Brown), along with Kafka's twisted sense of humor, the many moods of John Updike, and more. John Lewis Gaddis etches a new history of The Cold War (Penguin). Lewis Lapham muses on his not so transcendent time With the Beatles (Melville House) and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. V.F. photographer Bruce Weber reveals how he learned to stop worrying and love fashion in Blood Sweat and Tears (teNeues). Jo Lauria and Suzanne Baizerman capture the California Design (Chronicle) dream. John Canemaker animates the life of Winsor McCay (Abrams), creator of "Little Nemo in Slumberland," and the father of the comic strip. Photographer Eric Boman's Blahnik by Boman (Chronicle) reveals art snaps of unapologetically extravagant heels in the wild. Sure, they're a tax deduction, and they make us laugh (though they also make us cry!), but in what other ways can our little nurslings earn their keep? Fret no more, the first of Lisa Brown's remarkable baby books, Baby, Mix Me a Drink (McSweeney's), instructs toddlers in the fine art of bartending; the second, Baby, Make Me Breakfast (McSweeney's), cheerfully assists tots in putting together the perfect hangover repast. Hey, wait, that's what cronies are for!

In double time, go, cat, go! Peter J. Levinson swings with Tommy Dorsey (Da Capo). "The thinking celebrity's decorator" Michael S. Smith polishes Elements of Style (Rizzoli).

Elliott Erwitt's Woof (Chronicle) is a paean to pooches high and low. Paul Levy edits The Letters of Lytton Strachey (Farrar,

Straus and Giroux). The Hurdy Gurdy Man comes singing songs of love in The Autobiography of Donovan (St. Martin's). Ludwig Bemelmans dishes what goes down When You Lunch with the Emperor (Overlook).

The sparkling Margaret Shepherd graciously shares the Swiss Army Knife of social skills, also known as The Art of Civilized Conversation (Broadway), with a legion of blundering chuckleheads. Merci mille fois, Madame Shepherd!

Taschen releases an updated edition of photographer William Claxton and author Joachim E. Berendt's 60s-era

classic, Jazzlife. Sitting in are all the coolest, baddest, most beautiful legends: Charlie, Duke, Muddy, Billie, Stan, Miles, Thelonious, Chet, and many, many more.