Robin Givhan, special correspondent for style and culture at Newsweek/The Daily Beast

The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris, by Alicia Drake
"This is research. I'm writing a book about the 1973 Franco-American fashion show at Versailles. Alicia Drake's book famously captures the tenor of the era."

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable
"I bought this after reading the early, glorious reviews. Then it won the Pulitzer for history. All 608 pages of it are taunting me from my nightstand."

Swamplandia, by Karen Russell
"My book club is reading this. It was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, but this year, no winner was chosen. How could this be? We decided to judge for ourselves."


Photo: Courtesy of Robin Givhan/Helayne Seidman