HOT TYPE ELISSA SCHAPPELL

June, glorious June!

A new day is dawning in America. In Richistan (Crown), Robert Frank charts the surprisingly volatile power of the burgeoning American multi-millionaires, blue-collar workers turned fur-collared swells who increasingly and often uneasily wield their newfound influence like a club.

Across the sea: In The Angry Island (Simon & Schuster), V.F. contributor A. A. Gill gleefully boxes the ears of his English countrymen, insisting that while Brits appear polite they are actually consumed with hideous rage. Nosy Jeremy Paxman'sOn Royalty (Public Affairs) professes to be only a “polite inquiry into some strangely related families.”

Also this month: From H. L. Mencken on the hot dog to Langston Hughes on soul food, Molly O'Neill whips up an anthology of American Food Writing (Library of America). In her debut novel, Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him (Viking), Danielle Ganek captures the absurdity of the New York art scene with wide and witty brushstrokes. Bridget Kinsella explains how she got sucked into the Visiting Life (Harmony) and forged friendships with women who love men behind bars. Edward Sheriff Curtis, photographer of the Old West, is The Shadow Catcher (Simon & Schuster) of Marianne Wiggins's new novel. In Diana Abu-Jaber's gripping mystery, a fingerprint expert pursues a serial infant killer and the startling Origin (Norton) of her own childhood. Master of maximalist prose and human minutiae Rick Moody spins out three sensational novellas in Right Livelihoods (Little, Brown). The nervy Lucy Kaylin bravely dares to confront the emotionally fraught relationship between mothers and The Perfect Stranger (Bloomsbury) they pay to nurture their children. Editor Ellen Sussman collects essays from Bad Girls (Norton) such as Erica Jong (zip!), Daphne Merkin (spank!), and Pam Houston (giddyup!).

Sit in the corner with: Jack Pendarvis's comic debut, Your Body Is Changing (MacAdam/Cage), Hilma Wolitzer'sSummer Reading (Ballantine), Khaled Hosseini'sA Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead), Nicholas Coleridge'sA Much Married Man (St. Martin’s), Michael Ondaatje'sDivisadero (Knopf), The Collected Stories of Leonard Michaels (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Pete Hamill'sNorth River (Little, Brown), Deepak Chopra'sBuddha (Harper San Francisco), Eliza Griswold'sWideawake Field (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Liza Kirwin and Joan Lord'sArtists in Their Studios (Collins Design), Charles J. Hynes'sTriple Homicide (St. Martin’s), Tatiana de Rosnay'sSarah’s Key (St. Martin’s), Mary South'sThe Cure for Anything Is Salt Water (HarperCollins), Penny Vincenzi'sSheer Abandon (Doubleday), and Kate White'sLethally Blonde (Warner).

Unwavering political contrarian Noam Chomsky smart-bombs the U.S. military’s global Interventions (City Lights). Shock and awe!