If you’re busy designing clothes all day, it can be hard to keep up your nautical cred. Which is why it pays to make friends with a nature writer or two.

The fine folks at Rogues Gallery have brought the British writer Philip Hoare on as their “foreign correspondent,” stocked his most recent tome on whales and printed a set of whale-themed tees to match the occasion.

By all accounts, it’s quite a book and bringing him in to talk is the kind of polymath move that got Opening Ceremony where it is. We just hope Hoare doesn’t tempt any impressionable youths into the whaling life.

The band t-shirt’s always been a contentious item—and it’s only gotten worse in the age of Pitchfork—but we’ve still got a soft spot for a good screenprinted tee. Especially if it comes with a few smudges and a good story.

These tees come from Cesar Padilla’s latest tome Ripped: T-Shirts from the Underground, an ode to the bootlegged t-shirts of the 70s and 80s, and they’re some of the better punk artifacts out there. Padilla’s also the man behind Cherry, one of New York’s better vintage shops, so he’s had plenty of time to cull the best of the best. For your own wardrobe, we’d suggest something a little more recent and a little less historical—just so you don’t have to borrow someone else’s story—but there’s no harm in looking.

See some of our favorite band shirts»

In honor of your busy weekend, here’s five of our favorite new terms for the state of intoxication, as gleaned from Paul Dickson’s Drunk: A Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary.

Whipcat
Fish Eyed
Vulcanized
Nimptopsical
Merle Haggard

Use them in good health.

Iran has produced some pretty fascinating contradictions in the past 50 years, and we’re only starting to work through them. But a good coffee table book never hurts.

Life as a Visitor, which arrives this month from Assouline, takes a look at the more than twenty exotic spots through the eyes of Iranian ex-pat Angella M. Nazarian, and comes away with something between a travelogue and a memoir. That means vignettes on cultural alienation share space with memories of the best sunbathing spots in Postino.

Both of which should come in handy next time you’re abroad.

One of the more interesting booths at (capsule) had surprisingly little to do with clothing. Shockingly enough, this one has to do with newsprint.

The booth in question belonged to Staple, a clothing line and design firm that’s best known as the owner of the Lower East Side boutique Reed Space. But this month they’re branching out even farther, with a quarterly called Reed Pages. It’s all interviews and editorial spreads so far, but the highlight might be in their innovative approach to advertising. Called “sponsorship,” each ad consists of the brand’s logo printed an inch high in the middle of a huge blank page. It’s branding at its purest: no models, no pictures and no elegantly worded slogans.

Southern style has been having a pretty good year, so it’s worth seeing a bit of it in person—or at least in firsthand photos. To that end, Michael Loyd Young trekked through the Mississippi River Delta with camera in hand, guided by a love of blues music and outdoor grills. The result is the aptly named Blues, Booze, & BBQ, coming out in late November from Powerhouse.

See a few more pics»

Formalwear has a lot of unspoken rules, and as you get into the thorny, European end, they can get downright confusing. For instance, blue suits and brown shoes are now entirely acceptable—provided you’re outside of Germany. Just so you know…

For a guide, we suggest a tome called Gentleman, which recently received a new cover and a revised edition. It’s got a few hefty predecessors, but it’s definitely worth a look. A few other insights contained within: if your tie lifts your collar tips off your shirt, it’s time to change ties, and if you’re wearing a club tie around London high society, you’d better belong to the club.

Well, you can cancel that trip to Manchester.

A Brooklyn blogger just talked his way into a few dozen copies of Rig Out, Oi Polloi’s new zine. If you’re stateside (or boroughside) and you want a copy, shoot him an email at secretforts@gmail.com offering some form of sartorial recompense.

The Mancunian boutique Oi Polloi has been a solid outlet for our anglophilic urges for a while now, but it looks like they’re getting into the publishing business.

This is a page from Rig Out, the new biannual “fanzine” assembled by Manchester’s finest. Naturally, there’s a lot of Barbour involved, along with a few well-chosen words, but you’ll have to cross the ocean to get your hands on it. So far, it’s only available in-store—but if you’re in the vicinity of Manchester, it should be worth a stop.

This coat might look a lot more familiar to French comics buffs, but on the off chance you aren’t a Corto Maltese fan, here’s a quick refresher course. Over the course of twelve graphic novels, he made a swashbuckling tour of the 20th century’s more exciting European wars, wearing an appropriately dashing series of nautical coats. And, thanks to his avid European readership, a few of those jackets are finally making it onto shelves.

Colette just offered up this nautical number on the heels of a Maltese-themed exhibition at the Museé National De La Marine. It’s not exactly seasonal, but we can never turn down a good nautical coat, and the gold stripe on the left cuff is the kind of detail that usually flourishes in fiction. Hopefully you can wear it in a suitably adventurous fashion.

Kanye West’s wisdom is vast and diverse enough that it was only a matter of time before it made it into book form.

Thank You and You’re Welcome was handed out to fans on Mr. West’s Glow in the Dark tour, and has been circulating for a while now. But it’s just now making it to bookstores, replete with the same wisdom that got him where he is today. Anyone out there with an insatiable desire to be Kanye just got a new favorite book, and Kanye can add “Dr. Phil-esque Life Coach” to his list of hyphenates.

No word yet on how much of it is all caps.

No longer satisfied with newsstands, radio, and the scarf business, Monocle is moving into publishing. Their latest one-off is a hard bound book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, and it looks like the latest in a long string of good ideas.

The binding is perfect, the run is limited to 1000 copies (just on the cusp of a guaranteed sellout) and the book itself, from Swiss essayist Alain de Botton, looks both impeccably written and perfectly chosen for Monocle’s office-bound demographic. A few hundred pages of well-thought musings on the nature of the working life might be just the thing to remind them what they liked about books in the first place.

Luckily, the magazine offers the perfect venue for publicizing the book, and they already have a few stores they can place it in—all of which makes Tyler Brule look more like Ted Turner than William Shawn.

At what point do we stop calling them a magazine and start calling them an empire?

Outsider artists come in all flavors, but we prefer ours lovable, childlike, and doomed. So Daniel Johnston is a natural choice.

His medium of choice is permanent marker and his inspiration comes from a lifelong struggle with schizophrenia and violent psychosis. On top of which, he’s one of the better songwriters to emerge from the past 25 years. But let’s tackle one career at a time…

More info and a few pictures from Johnston’s latest monograph»

For those of us without fabulous wealth, it’s hard to appreciate the psychic brutality at work in the art collection game. High profile collectors aren’t usually aesthetes or intellectuals; they’re corporate raiders and law partners. They play for keeps, which is why the auction system ends up being so lucrative. The goal is to put together a collection that will command respect, and whoever ends up with the best stuff wins.

Luckily, the aesthetes at Assouline are stepping in to lend a hand. They’ve just put out The Impossible Collection, a guide to the 100 most valuable works of art in the world. It says what they are, why they matter, and where you can find each and every one. The book itself will set you back 500 dollars, but the value of the art is incalculable. Still, it’s nice to have a goal.

See the complete list»

Country music has had a rough time for the past twenty years or so, but once upon a time it was still raw, exciting, and entirely pure. Musicians came together at outdoor music parks, playing for whoever drove by. Regional sounds from Nashville, Tennessee; Bakersfield, California; and Lubbock, Texas mixed together to create a uniquely American sound that changed from state to state.

Some of it got recorded, but the vast majority of the acts were lost forever, aside from a few memories and a few old photographs.

Leon Kagarise recorded more than 4000 hours of it, but he also took more than a few pictures, and he’s put the snaps together into a photo-primer on the style of the time, called Pure Country. Anyone who’s ever looked up to Johnny Cash or George Jones could learn a thing or two from it. These were the original rock stars.

Our pick of the pictures»

There are a lot of reasons to troll used-book stores, but whether you find the title you’re after or not, there’s always a few interesting covers.

This gallery of old Pelican covers should be a reminder: they don’t design them like they used to. (Although Chip Kidd might have something to say about that.) And judging a book by its cover isn’t as bad as it’s cracked up to be.

In the worst case, it sits prettily on your end table while you turn to more interesting pursuits. After all, it’s an object too.

See a few more covers»

Classic novels have had a rough shake lately, but the problem may be with the shabby covers you’re used to seeing at Barnes & Noble. After all, a hardcover is still a hardcover.

This series from Penguin Classics may help things out a bit. Designer Coralie Bickford-Smith came up with these, and they’re just about perfect, from the aristocratic chandeliers of Great Expectations to the vulgar geometry of Crime & Punishment.

Sadly, it’s only available in the UK through Waterstones…but we’re sure there’s a trick or two that can get it to your door.

aRUDE editor and occasional MOTH Iké Udé has just put together what may be the magnum opus of modern MOTH-hood. The book is called the Style File, and it might turn out to be the sartorial field guide we’ve been waiting for.

The book profiles a series of well-dressed souls—including fellow Kempt favorites like Ruben Toledo and Dita von Teese—and their take on personal style. Naturally, there’s a lot to learn from Udé himself. We just hope it all made it into the book.

Students of American style should take note: the upper class isn’t quite as old as you’d think. Only a few centuries ago, even New York was a rugged frontier town, with an upper-crust populated by shysters and remittance men. Brooklyn was still farmland and Wall Street still had a wall around it. The clothes may have been dirtier, but we’re sure you could pick up a few things.

One of our favorite publishers just came out with a book that immerses you in just that era. It’s called High Society, from British historian and noted dandy Nick Foulkes. It may be the beginning of a new historical obsession for us.

They really knew how to wear a hat back then.

As the saying goes, writing about music is a lot like dancing about architecture. When you’re dealing with intensely visual directors, writing about movies isn’t much better. Most of the time, you’d do better telling the story in pictures.

Taschen has been doing just that, telling stories through notes, production stills, and frame englargements. Their most recent edition for Stanley Kubrick takes a tour from his early noir trappings—especially the overlooked Killer’s Kiss—through the immersive, dreamlike approach that made him famous.

His frames also make better coffee table fodder than any other Hollywood director we could name, which matters a lot more than you’d think.

A few more pages»

It seems there was a bit of a delay in getting the latest tribute to the King of Cool off to the printers; a certain Mr. Pitt who had signed up to write a foreword about his idol never managed to come up with anything except “Angelina ate my homework.”

Well, the book—Unforgettable Steve McQueen is finally here, and it was well worth the wait. In place of Brad’s encomiums it has the best collection of McQueen pix we’ve seen yet —and that’s saying something. If you only buy one McQueen book for your Ultimate Gentleman’s Library, this should be it.

Also worth noting: the book is actually French (subtitle, Inoubliable Steve McQueen); seems celebrating our style icons is yet another place where the Frogs have us beat.

British-born photographer Ronny Jaques, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, never achieved the fame of contemporaries like Richard Avedon and Horst P. Horst. The cognoscenti however have long admired the brilliant work he did for the likes of Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country and Holiday (along with Slim Aarons) in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. His images, like this one of Robert Mitchum from 1947, resonate with all the glamour and sophistication of those lost days, made more compelling by the fact that Jacques never glossed over his subjects.

Better late than never, Jaques’ work has now been collected in an alluring new book, Stolen Moments. He worked solo and without set-dressing of any kind, capturing his subjects in unguarded moments - hence the title - with only their raw style on display. Soak it up, son, soak it up.

While suit-makers look increasingly towards the accountants and ad men of the 50s and 60s, it’s amazing to think they’re overlooking one of the best subcultures of the era. Forget the twenties: the fifties and sixties were the real jazz age.

Miles Davis speaks for himself, but a whole generation of icons stood along with him, ditching the porkpie hats and traditional chord structures in favor of a new kind of music and a new kind of style. Taschen did us a favor rounding up 500 pages worth of album covers for their appropriately named Jazz Covers. We can’t think of a better window into the age…other than the albums, that is.

See the covers»

Photo by Anula Maiberg

The “manly advice” market is really taking off lately, between a few blogs we could name and GQ’s ever-increasing “rules” pieces. And, if you remember the Tribeca J. Crew store as well as we do, you know there’s a pretty good book form of it too. Say hello to What a Man Should Know, Volume 1, available at a bookstore and preppy menswear retailer near you.

See what’s inside»

With a $500 price tag, its own velvet-lined suitcase and more melons than the fruit aisle at Whole Foods, Playboy’s limited edition The Complete Centerfolds book we told you about last November was one of those overly-ambitious ventures - much like the seven girlfriends - that seem to characterize Hef’s evening years.

Now however, perhaps responding to market pressures, they’ve released a more recession-friendly edition without all the bells and whistles, but still including every single strumpet to grace the famed gatefold since 1953 - over 600 of them to be exact. Presented chronologically in large format, it’s remarkable to chart the progression of soft porn aesthetics over the decades, changing with tastes and times. One thing’s for certain, however: melons have been in season for 50 years.

A lot of things are pointing to an imminent scooter revival; the price of gas and that business about carbon footprints, of course, but also the fact that folk like Rag & Bone keep basing collections on Mods and Rockers That makes Mick Walker’s zippy new book, Classic Scooters: 1945 - 1970 all the more timely. The Italian Piaggo company’s iconic Vespa and the equally alluring Lambretta are the famous ones, of course, but there are many others whose names may be unfamiliar but embody just as much great vintage verve. Snap up a copy, pop Quadrophenia on the stereo and be transported to a simpler, much more stylish era. We’ll meet you there.

Maybe it’s just Godfather II, but there’s always been a certain mystique surrounding pre-Castro Havana. For a few years, it was on its way to becoming the Vegas of the Caribbean—that is, a city almost completely controlled by the mob. It operated under a kind of resort colonialism, with a government whose main concern seemed to be developing new cocktail recipes and keeping the showgirls coming.

Luckily, it’s not completely lost to history. Boing Boing pointed us to Peter Moruzzi’s Havana Before Castro, a quick, colorful tour of the city as a tropical playground. It doubles as a primer in 50s luxury, the beach look back when Miami was still just retirees and sailors.

Some of the spots are still there, if you feel like dodging the travel embargo, but this book may be as close as you’ll get.

More pictures after the jump»

Photo courtesy of the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris / Phaidon Press

If it hadn’t been for a certain dapper Swiss genius named Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris—Le Corbusier to you—the likes of Richard Meier and would still be playing with Legos. Perhaps the very first starchitect—and way cooler than Frank Lloyd Wright—the dapper fellow in the bowtie and black specs masterminded the Modern movement and laid the foundation, literally and figuratively, for all avant-garde design to come.

The Phaidon Press has just come out with a $200, 20-lb., 2,000-image tribute to this towering talent, entitled Le Courbusier: Le Grand. In it you can see how came up with groundbreaking designs for everything from chairs to skyscrapers, dressed to the nines all the way.

Photo courtesy of Steidl

A precious glimpse at one of the world’s most incredible photo collections from the golden age of Hollywood is to be found in Robert Dance’s opulent new book, Glamour of the Gods. The pix are all from the archives of John Kobal, who was one of the first to collect studio portraits of stars like Greta Garbo, Marlon Brando, Marlene Dietrich, Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly and Rita Hayworth, realizing they’d one day be equally important, if not more so, than the movies they made.

Above is Clarence Sinclair Bull’s incredibly elegant study of Gary Cooper, done for MGM in 1934, one of our favorite photos of all time. Further evidence, as if we required any, that they don’t make movie stars—or even photographs—like they used to.

You don’t hear much about biker culture as an influence on modern day designers, partly because the references are hard to name. John Varvatos usually gets a few references to The Wild One, but that’s like tracking British suiting back to James Bond. The look had to come from somewhere…

Rin Tanaka’s Harley-Davidson Book of Fashions gives a pretty good explanation of where. Covering the 1910-1950, Tanaka tracks the evolution of the bike from a useful novelty to a badge of outsider status, along with 40 years worth of bike helmets, any one of which would be enough to get a fledgling designer noticed.

With gas prices showing no signs of slowing, we may be on the cusp of a scooter renaissance, so the book couldn’t have come at a better time. It may not have our favorite biker jacket, but it’s got more inspiration than anything we’ve seen on the racks lately.

They may seem quaint and horribly rural, but the appeal of the circus has never quite disappeared. And, as Thom Browne recently reminded us, their influence is far from disappearing.

Taschen has just come out with a book that should be the perfect primer if you’re looking to brush up on your clowns. It’s called The Circus, 1870-1950, covering 80 years of traveling entertainment, complete with its own posters, stars and sense of style.

Step right up, step right up»

When the great Miles Davis was assembling his quintet in 1955 and chose a troubled young saxophonist named John Coltrane over more established and experienced players, many assumed the partnership wouldn’t last. While Davis was a reserved, dapper aesthete born to achievement, Coltrane was cut from coarser cloth but no less of a musical genius for that. Surely two such outsized talents were bound to clash, especially with the specter of Coltrane’s drug use looming overhead.

There were no pyrotechnics apart from the musical variety however, note Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington, authors of an illuminating book due out next week, Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever—because “Coltrane was too humble, and Miles was simply too cool.” And thank god for it, or they might never have gotten around to laying down Kind of Blue.

Photo © MPTV / Richard Miller, courtesy Pavilion Books

We won’t waste a lot of words here telling you just how fucking cool Steve McQueen was.

If you’ve been paying attention you already know all about it, and if not, well, that’s OK too, but let your education begin with the most stylish damn book to muscle its way onto our desk this season: Steve McQueen: A Life in Pictures.

The first thing that sets it apart from the pack is the sheer size of the thing; at 10” x 12” the level of detail, sartorial and otherwise, is simply incandescent. Above, by way of example, is a snap of the King of Cool in one of his Porsches at the Riverside Raceway circuit in ‘59.

Just one though—we don’t want to overload you….

Courtesy of Abrams Books

Tim Pilcher’s titillating new title, Erotic Comics: A Graphic History certainly covers the territory. Beginning with the salacious mosaics of antiquity—oh, those naughty Ancient Romans—and Japanese Shunga woodblocks, it travels through Hogarth’s London and the ostensibly repressed Victorian era to the Tijuana Bibles of the 1930s, the rise of men’s magazines following World War II and the underground “comix” era of the ’70s.

However, we’re partial to the ’50s and ’60s (as usual) and the work of fellows like Bill Ward (above) with his impossibly-proportioned pin-ups and burlesque queens. He drew more than 10,000 of them over the course of his career, more than any other such artist before or since, and his influence is still apparent today—just check out the cover of the Fratellis’ Costello Music for one.

When manga artist Takashi Murakami was first tapped to collaborate with Louis Vuitton, he opened our eyes to the burgeoning cultural renaissance taking place in Japan.

Now the Japanese avant-garde is getting the full treatment in Ian Luna’s Tokyolife: Art & Design, which showcases the work of over 80 creative types pushing the boundaries in those fields as well as architecture, film, photography and of course fashion. While some names like Nigo of A Bathing Ape are already widely familiar and influential, others have yet to make their mark on the West.

Here’s your primer.

Showing up too early for a Rolling Stones shoot has proved fruitless for many a young photographer, sent away with a sneer from a certain famous pair of lips. For John “Hoppy” Hopkins however, it was the beginning of something big.

When he arrived to take some pix of the band one day in the summer of 1964, the former physicist and the recalcitrant Stones frontman hit it off. Hopkins later recounted that Jagger said he was the only photographer whom he’d ever allowed to take his picture before lunch.

The moody result, above, is included in Hopkins’ genius new book, From the Hip: Photographs by John “Hoppy” Hopkins 1960-66.

More on Hopkins’s new masterpiece»

Between emosogyny and Terrell Owens, the weeping man has gotten a pretty bad rap. To right the wrong, Sam Taylor-Wood put together some of the most masculine players in Hollywood—including the machismo-filled Benicio del Toro above and a red-eyed entry from the new James Bond below.

The book is titled, simply enough, Crying Men, and offers example after example of men shedding masculine tears, presumably over weighty subjects like racism, global warming, and the unavailability of quality suiting.

Pics after the jump»

Lanky Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore is one of the few No Wave-ers to have achieved a measure of commercial success.

So its no wonder that he pays homage to the musical subculture that his hipster empire is founded upon in his cool new book, No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980.

More on Moore»

Italian photographer and documentary filmmaker Fabio Paleari is best known for capturing one of the last interviews with Allen Ginsberg before his death in 1997. We assume he saw a similar window of opportunity with his latest subject, smack rocker Pete Doherty, who by all accounts should be dropping dead any minute now.

More on this momentous tome»

Today sees the release of the a new James Bond novel, entitled Devil May Care, celebrated by an aquatic release party in London, along with an accompanying press campaign. The novel is a one-off from British novelist Sebastian Faulks and finds Bond chasing a Blofield-esque villain through London, Paris and the Middle East. Much like the film series’ recent reboot with Casino Royale, the novel styles itself as a throwback, with action set in Bond’s heyday of 1967 and Faulks taking the unusual step of writing as Ian Fleming, which falls somewhere between marketing gimmick and postmodern conceit.

Through the kind of serendipity that can only arise from a PR department, the release coincides with Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday. Bond himself has been around for more than half that time: He’s nearing 55, making him older than Ronald McDonald but younger than Batman. And, like anyone who’s stuck around that many years, he’s been through more than a few adventures that everyone involved would prefer to forget.

Including Faulks himself, apparently»

Since it opened as a museum a year ago, Philip Johnson’s famous 1949 Glass House in New Canaan, CT has been flooded by both seekers after architectural wisdom and design junkies in general—so much so in fact, that all tours for the rest of 2008 are already sold out.

Your ticket inside»

On the heels of the Bond collection, we thought we’d take a closer look at the old Kempt bookshelf.

The Art of Manliness recently put up a list of the Essential Man’s Library, which seems like as good a place to start as any. After all, a well-stocked bookshelf is as vital as a well-cleaned floor if you’re trying to make an impression.

The 100 books range from middle-school English class fodder (Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird) to dense philosophy (The Republic, Beyond Good and Evil), but there’s something oddly syllabus-like about it. After all, it would be nice to have something you’ll actually want to read»

It may be early, but we’re always up for a little Bond.

Celebrating the author’s 100th birthday—which is coming up next Wednesday—Penguin is revamping their catalog of Fleming-era Bond novels with new editions and, best of all, new covers. The striking images come courtesy of San Francisco-based artist Michael Gillette, who makes appropriately sensual use of watercolor. The type and colors do a good job of replicated the 60s milieu, while the women remind us of the books’ central appeal»

New York has changed a lot in the past thirty years, and though there’s a lot more glass and concrete than there used to be, there are still a few dinosaurs creaking around.

For instance, the Chelsea Hotel. Founded in 1883, the hotel was a favorite of Mark Twain, and in more counter-cultural days was host to Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, Marilyn Monroe and Bob Dylan, gaining notoriety with the stabbing death of Nancy Spungen.

More pics and info on Inside: The Chelsea Hotel»

Whether it’s pools or stewardesses, we’re always curious to see the good life up close. The latest peek comes from Roger Moenks, who traversed the western world for pictures of the inheriting class in their natural habitat. The result is Inheriting Beauty, a quick tour of the ultra-rich.

More pics from Inheriting Beauty»

Photographer Brian Finke knows the friendly skies. Using magazine stories as a cover, he spent two years jaunting around the globe with some of the sexiest working women this side of the International Date Line. And he’s got the photographs—and knowledge—to prove it. His new photography book, out yesterday and aptly titled Flight Attendants, takes you behind the curtain at 30,000 feet.

After the jump, a few pearls of wisdom and a few more pics from a man with a ton a frequent flier miles»

If ever you find yourself in Maine, on a whale-watching expedition or, perhaps more likely, a hunt for the country’s best lobster roll, you can now dress the part.

Rogues Gallery, a small label known for its vintage inspired t-shirts and ultra soft flannel button-ups, has just opened its first shop at 41 Wharf Street in Portland. Located in a 19th Century industrial building, the store’s wrought-iron entryway, concrete slab walls and pine plank floors reflect the antiquated aesthetic the brand is known for. The store will carry the entire men’s line, and we hear that a women’s line is also in the works.

Because there’s nothing sexier than a woman in flannel.

Sixties star Steve McQueen’s rugged sportiness, authenticity and innate good taste are such that the likes of Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors have built whole collections around his stylistic legacy (yes, he’s the reason you’re wearing that shawl-collared sweater).

They and other fashion folk routinely pore over photos of the “King of Cool” for inspiration. And while a superb new book of pix—McQueen’s Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon—focuses

mainly on his automotive pursuits, they were such a major part of the actor’s panache this one’s no doubt destined for designers’ libraries as well.

More McQueen and his machines »

The good old-fashioned Zippo lighter is as much a part of any American male’s essential kit as a navy blazer or a decent pair of loafers. Though the ones we’ve collected over the years have been relegated to a dresser drawer since we stopped smoking some years ago, we like to think of them as more than mere reminders of a misspent youth. Our favorite, in well-burnished sterling silver, still sees service on special occasions when there are ladies present whose cigarettes require fire.

Thus we were delighted to see them treated as objets d’art»

There have been plenty of books devoted to James Bond over the years, most of them written for the kind of guys whose idea of a hot time is debating the relative merits of Holly Goodhead vs. Pussy Galore. 007 has never gotten the kind of visual treatment he deserves—odd for a fellow so focused on style.

The beautiful new James Bond Encyclopedia sets that to rights.»

Pop quiz: What has a $500 price tag, its own velvet-lined suitcase and more melons than the fruit aisle at Whole Foods? Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds, the new 720-page, 32-pound limited edition due out from Chronicle Books on Thanksgiving Day.

Hugh Hefner has been fulfilling male fantasies with a heavy dose of fromage since 1953, and he’s probably bedded the lion’s share of the 600-plus pinups inside—and paid for plenty of implants along the way.

But yes, you can read it for the articles.