AESTHETIC PLEASURE

This season's best new art books offer a sweeping exploration into identity, a crucial contemporary painter, and the delightful, pop-up whimsy of houseplants

Vanities/ Books

Invoking the Muse

In Rumaan Alam's Leave the World Behind (Ecco), a family trip turns ominous; full of wit and sharp observations of race and class, it's no surprise that the book is getting a film adaptation, set to star Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. Here, Alam reveals his inspirations.

FOUR LAST SONGS

by Richard Strauss, recorded by Jessye Norman

"lm Abendrot" ("At Sunset") felt particularly resonant to me— mournful as a song about death ought to be, but touched with beauty, which holds, perhaps, the promise of the afterlife.

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

by Edward Albee

I was thinking of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which conviviality among strangers conceals something menacing and difficult, at first, to see clearly.

SWIMMING HOME

by Deborah Levy

Levy's books are stubborn and strange and wonderful. This one upends the conventions of the genteel novel of middle-class people on a picturesque vacation, something I aspired to do with my own book.

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