Are you Team Kelly Clarkson, or are you Team Whimsical Artisanal Brooklyn Curiosity Shop? ##### The singer’s claim that she got the _Pretty Woman_ treatment in a ritzy New York toy store has sparked a frenzy of heated opinions By Stuart Heritage A s we all know, the Internet long ago devolved into little more than a crude disagreement machine. Nothing gets the world going like arbitrarily taking sides in an argument based on painfully incomplete information. We have seen this dynamic play out with everything from the recent Lindsay Clancy and Cornell cases to the color of a dress and the moral duty of photographing named men during food-delivery shifts. But now it seems that the form has finally been perfected. An ideal dispute has landed in our laps. Nobody can say with any real certainty who is right or wrong, but based on gut feeling alone, the Internet has already drawn lines. To wit: Are you Team Kelly Clarkson, or are you Team Whimsical Artisanal Brooklyn Curiosity Shop? READ ON

By Jennifer Noyes **Barbour** has taken over **Dean’s,** the new **British** joint on Sixth Avenue and West Houston, from October 10 through 14, giving the place READ ON

By Jim Kelly Dozens of books have been published about **_The New Yorker,_** and I have READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss Simon Sebag Montefiore’s timely history of the modern Middle East, the _Madeline_ author’s madcap 1952 memoir, and a publishing powerhouse’s ode to editing By Jim Kelly Can you be the most productive writer of history books and also be among the very best? Simon Sebag Montefiore proves you can be, and I dare you to pick up any of his nine history books and not be enthralled from the first sentence. (A particular favorite is _Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar._) Now he has turned to chronicling the Middle East since 1900, and provides the kind of perspective and judgment that will be revelatory to those who are either consumed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or who have tuned it out because the situation is so complicated and tragic. READ ON

By Eve Eismann Think of Hollywood Westerns and it’s hard not to picture **John Wayne.** **_Rio Bravo_** was released in 1959 during the peak of the genre. READ ON

By Gabriella Maestri **New York City** is home to many cultural institutions. The department store on **Fifth Avenue** wedged between 57th and 58th Streets READ ON

By Eve Eismann The **Japanese** director **Yasujiro Ozu** pondered the tension between tradition and modernity within READ ON

By Gracie Wiener I’d describe my interior-design taste as similar to that of Bunny Williams—traditional, colorful, lived-in—but there are days I fantasize READ ON

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, for whom every anniversary was a diamond anniversary. ##### A thoroughly unsentimental guide to the anniversary gifts you’ll actually want By Jennifer Noyes My husband and I are coming up on our 17th wedding anniversary. It has stiff competition in our house. Our anniversary falls in late August, when summer is ending, school is starting, and football season is looming. My husband’s fantasy-football league has been around since he graduated from college, so, in the hierarchy of his affections, it was technically his first wife. The Philadelphia Eagles pre-date his birth, which makes them less a team than a birthright. By the time football season arrives, I am not so much a wife as a mistress. Seventeen years of marriage, and it turns out there’s no traditional 17th-anniversary gift. Fifteen is crystal. Twenty is china. Seventeen gets nothing. READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss the history of how Hitler dismantled Germany’s democracy, a guide to the psychology behind investing, and a romp through the abodes of the British monarchy By Jim Kelly The flexibility inherent in a democracy can also be used against it, and no greater example exists than the way in which Adolf Hitler, once he was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, succeeded bit by bit in undoing German democracy in less than two months. No one who had read his book _Mein Kampf_ should have been surprised, since the two-volume work is, as Timothy W. Ryback puts it, a “playbook for transforming a constitutional republic into an authoritarian state.” Suspending civil liberties, reining in the press, raising tariffs, establishing the first concentration camp: all happened with alarming speed until March 23, when the Weimar Republic ended and the Third Reich began. READ ON

By Gabriella Maestri Something handsome this way comes! **Sabah,** the **Turkish-inspired** handmade-shoe brand is teaming with the luxurious **London men’s-wear** READ ON

By Cassidy Sollazzo One of **Peru’s** most prolific bands, **Los Mirlos** celebrate every facet of their identity and sound on 1986’s READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss the story of how debris from 9/11 was repurposed, a jaunty history of punctuation, and a look into the making of Paul Simon’s _Graceland_ album By Jim Kelly Has it really been 25 years since 9/11? For many of us, the day is so seared in our memories that its anniversary each year elicits fresh emotions. _Scattered Steel_ takes an unusual and fascinating angle on that day. The steel and concrete debris had to be sifted for human remains, and then the concrete became landfill and the steel mostly got recycled to foreign countries, some of which were not told of its provenance. But some steel did remain, and brothers Max and Samuel Holleran trace how it got distributed around the world for memorials, keeping the memory of that day alive for folks who lived thousands of miles away from READ ON

Seth Meyers, Vincenzo Latronico, Meghan Daum, and Graydon Carter at the inaugural awards dinner, held at the Waverly Inn. ##### The recipients of the inaugural awards are Vincenzo Latronico, for fiction, and Meghan Daum, for reportage When it came to naming AIR MAIL’s inaugural literary prizes, we knew that we wanted them to honor a titan of literature, and that we wanted to award them to writers of both fiction and reportage, which demanded a namesake who was a virtuoso in both. Put that way, Wolfe was the natural choice. He was at the vanguard of New Journalism both in his groundbreaking magazine articles “The Me Decade” and “Radical Chic” and in books such as _The Right Stuff._ When he turned his hand to fiction, the results—such as _The Bonfire of the Vanities_ and _A Man in Full READ ON_

Don Juan (1926) Directed by Alan Crosland Shown from left: Mary Astor, John Barrymore (as Don Jose de Marana/Don Juan de Marana) By Eve Eismann Since **Don Juan** was introduced in 1630 by dramatist **Tirso de Molina,** the Spanish Lothario has appeared in numerous re-interpretations READ ON

Both Chopard and David Webb say the bedazzled arachnid is theirs. ##### Two historic jewelry houses claimed a giant yellow-sapphire piece worn by the actress on a _Spider-Man_ red carpet as their own. Now it has seemingly disappeared. What happened? By Marion Fasel W hen a star borrows jewelry to wear on a red carpet, the information about it is typically announced in a simple press release issued by the jeweler or their publicity firm. On July 24, however, a major credit quickly gave way to a tangled web of confusion. It all started at 10:53 A.M., when Chopard, the Swiss jeweler and watchmaker, sent out a press release featuring two pictures of Zendaya at the Shanghai premiere of _Spider-Man: Brand New Day,_ alongside a description of the massive diamond-and-19-carat-yellow-sapphire spider brooch the actress wore pinned to the hip of her archival READ ON

Be prepared! ##### The best accessories are rarely the expensive ones. They’re the ones that quietly rescue the day—then disappear back into your bag By Jennifer Noyes The most consequential object on our trip to Rome last summer was a paper fan bought from a street vendor for three euros. My youngest child had reached that particular shade of pinkish red that suggests imminent structural failure—the sort no amount of gelato can fix—and the fan, small, folding, entirely without pretension, became the hardest-working item we had in Europe. More useful than my suitcase. More appreciated than the hotel. A piece of paper accomplishing what centuries of Roman engineering, Pantheon included, somehow could not: moving the air. I, meanwhile, had packed three pairs of sunglasses and nothing capable of producing a breeze. I’ve thought about that fan ever since. READ ON

A whole-earth catalogue. ##### A kitten gets dragged into a bank job, Italy’s beach clubs declare war on packed lunches, and other strange stories from around the globe … By George Kalogerakis In **East Rutherford, New Jersey** , authorities are still searching for a man who photobombed World Cup champion **Spain’s** team picture as the players celebrated with their trophies. The interloper, who lumbered onto the stage and refused to leave despite **Gianni Infantino’s** repeated urging (maybe the FIFA chief should have tried to coax him with small treats or large, shiny medals), was described as dressed in a dark suit and overlong red tie, bloated, slow moving, apparently slow thinking, and with a bizarre orange cast—the effect, according to one onlooker, that of “taxidermy gone terribly wrong.” Elsewhere in the world: READ ON

By Gabriella Maestri Did **_Bridgerton_** do it for you? Have you an affinity for Empire waists and calling playboys “rakes”? If your answer to at least one of these READ ON

SEBERG,NIVEN, BONJOUR TRISTESSE, 1958 By Eve Eismann **_Bonjour Tristesse_** needs no introduction. But humor me, if you will. Adapted by **Otto Preminger** in 1958 from **Françoise Sagan’s** READ ON

A group of Nazi-concentration-camp survivors have a meal at the Hôtel Lutetia in May 1945. ##### How a Paris hotel that once hosted Hemingway and Picasso became a home for anti-Nazi exiles, German intelligence officers, and, finally, concentration-camp survivors By Jane Rogoyska When I first started working on the book that would become _Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War,_ I never envisaged featuring a hotel. My interest began with the idea of exile, specifically the experiences of a group of prominent German anti-Nazis who were faced with a stark choice when Hitler came to power in February 1933: to remain in Germany and face arrest, imprisonment, or even death, or to flee. At the time, the Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was prominent in my mind. Navalny made the extraordinary choice to return to Russia after a poisoning attempt READ ON

By Gracie Wiener **Foster’s Market** has been a staple of my life since 1997 and a pillar of **Durham, North Carolina,** for even longer. Chef **Sara Foster**

George Washington raises a glass at Christmas dinner in Mount Vernon. ##### America’s Founding Fathers were fueled by a belief in liberty, democracy, and self-determination—and, as a new book points out, extraordinary amounts of rum By Brooke Barbier In their six-part documentary series from last year, _The American Revolution,_ filmmakers Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt told the story of the birth of the United States. While the episodes were stirring in the usual Ken Burns way, there was a glaring omission during the 12 hours of film. Where was all the booze? Eighteenth-century Americans drank an astounding amount of alcohol compared with us today. They imbibed beer, cider, wine, brandy, rum, and whiskey. Alcohol permeated colonists’ lives regardless of their place in the social order. Women and men tippled, as did both Black and white colonists. They crafted multi-step cocktails and employed barware and ingredients that would rival any swanky cocktail lounge today. READ ON

By Jennifer Noyes Interior designer **Victoria Hagan,** of restrained East Coast elegance, has teamed up with **High Camp Supply**

George McNally, photographed by Olivia Montalto. ##### The 22-year-old dishes on getting kicked out of school in London; learning the hospitality business from his father, Balthazar founder Keith McNally; and Faux, his upcoming Tribeca restaurant By Jeanne Malle “Aren’t people going to get so bored with hearing about me?,” George McNally asks. The 22-year-old British American is preparing to open his first restaurant, Faux, in Tribeca later this summer. George is the son of Keith McNally, the restaurant mogul behind Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern, and his debut has been the subject of speculation since rumors began circulating in December. With this wave of excitement come articles, and with articles come personal questions, many of which George would rather dodge. “I haven’t broken it down. I haven’t seen any therapist,” he says of his feelings about the READ ON

The United States team for the 1950 World Cup, held in Rio de Janeiro. ##### In 1950, Joe Gaetjens helped the U.S. pull off the greatest upset in World Cup history. Fourteen years later, a Haitian death squad came for him By Leander Schaerlaeckens What happened to Joe Gaetjens, the mysterious Haitian-American soccer player whose goal felled mighty England at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil? My quest to find out the fate of Gaetjens—the dishwasher who engineered what became known as the “Miracle on Grass,” the greatest upset in World Cup history—led not only to the grim answer but, eventually, to my book on the cockamamie history of the U.S.M.N.T., _The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts_ _._ Gaetjens was born into an influential Haitian family in 1924. His mother had a dream READ ON

Born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, in 1896, Dawn Powell chronicled the machinations of New York society with the cool distance of an outsider. ##### A new edition of Dawn Powell’s 1942 novel, _A Time to Be Born,_ seeks to rehabilitate its author, whose society tales skewered the New York milieu and earned the admiration of Hemingway and Vidal By Marlowe Granados “I want this new novel to be delicate and cutting—nothing will cut New York but a diamond,” Dawn Powell wrote in her diary. It is a fitting observation. When I read the novels of Powell, I imagine her writing as though carving a diamond out of the rough. It takes a particular kind of skill to be as precise as Powell is. She cuts and cleaves at her characters until their facets shine, and her prose has the same effect—cool, hard, and glittering. Powell’s New York is laid out before her readers with such specificity. It is an atmosphere full of clandestine studios, subterranean bars, and the swanky apartments of New York’s elite. READ ON

Discovering the stories of treatment before modern health care in London’s Herb Garret, part of the Old Operating Theatre Museum. By Ruby Wright This item was originally published on airmail.news. Read on Air Mail →

##### This week, don’t miss: the five Cambridge grads who spied for Stalin, how birds evolved from dinosaurs, and a W.W.II novel following two Black U.S. soldiers and a Jewish boy By Jim Kelly There is no more infamous spy ring than the Cambridge Five, the group of friends who met at Cambridge University in the 1930s, were recruited by Soviet agents, and then proceeded to feed intelligence to Moscow from their various perches in British government. The best known, certainly, was Kim Philby, the model for the traitor in _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy;_ the fact that Philby knew the author as fellow spy David Cornwell and blew his cover, leading Cornwell to begin a new career as a novelist under the pen name John le Carré, is the only good thing Philby READ ON

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. ##### Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s attempt to flip a $30 million Cotswolds farmhouse has been thwarted by floods, planning battles, an anemic property market—and the Romans By Ashley Baker F or chronic house flippers Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, the spoils of Hollywood have long been rivaled by the riches of real estate. Over the past two decades, the couple has bought and sold more than 30 homes in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and Montecito, generally without much drama. But then they came to the Cotswolds. When they purchased Kitesbridge Farm, in the summer of 2024, they intended to use it as a vacation home, hopscotching between the 16,600-square-foot estate and two palatial homes in California. They were sufficiently taken with the place to pay $20 million—around $4 million over the asking price—for the 43-acre complex in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire, where neighbors include READ ON

George Michael at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, where he received the Video Vanguard Award for the music videos from his debut solo album, _Faith._ ##### With songs like “Father Figure” and “Careless Whisper,” George Michael became the first white solo artist to lead the _Billboard_ Top R&B Albums chart—re-drawing the boundaries of the genre forever By Sathnam Sanghera T his year marks the 10th anniversary of George Michael’s death. It’s an excuse to re-evaluate his cultural legacy, which I have done at length in my new book, _Tonight the Music Seems So Loud: The Meaning of George Michael._ And when it comes to American R&B, one of the curious changes the Brit and former Wham! front man arguably helped bring about was the way the traditionally Black genre was classified and appreciated. It all started in the late 80s, when the phrase “cultural appropriation” was still sociological jargon, and when _Faith_ —featuring hits like “Father Figure” and the titular track “Faith”—made George Michael the first white soloist to lead the READ ON

By Catherine Scott I have no business (and even less desire) to be in the**kitchen,** but these **Spanish knives** make a compelling READ ON

##### The proliferation of A.I. fembots is only the latest iteration in a centuries-old quest to create the “perfect” woman By Olivia Rutigliano At the Cannes Film Festival last week, Demi Moore shared her thoughts on the arrival of A.I. in the film industry. She told a reporter from _Variety_ that Hollywood should “find ways [to] work with it” because its involvement is inevitable. _“_ A.I. is here,” she said. “And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose.” But she assured the crowd that, while Hollywood could do more to “protect” itself, “the truth is there really isn’t anything to fear because what it can never replace is what true art comes from, which is not the physical, it comes from the soul…. And that they can never recreate through something that is technical.” Except, of course, they already have. READ ON

Roddy McDowall in _Planet of the Apes,_ 1968. ##### Roddy McDowall came to fame with _How Green Was My Valley_ and starred alongside Elizabeth Taylor in _Cleopatra,_ but _The Planet of the Apes_ is what cemented his legacy By Samuel Garza Bernstein Ask a classic film fan about Roddy McDowall and they’ll quickly cite _How Green Was My Valley_ or _Lassie Come Home,_ maybe _My Friend Flicka._ Ask a devotee of screen epics and _Cleopatra_ immediately springs to mind. Disaster film lovers remember _The Poseidon Adventure._ Horror fans will think of the _Fright Night_ films and perhaps _The Legend of Hell House_. For science fiction and adventure buffs, though, Roddy McDowall’s work in the _Planet of the Apes_ franchise is the most enduring part of his onscreen legacy—and you don’t even get to see his face. Over the course of eight years, Roddy became the emotional and intellectual heart of the five films and the live action TV series as Cornelius, an evolved chimpanzee archaeologist. (Though, as any READ ON

_Ciao, Italia!_ Thwarted by railway-engineering works which scuppered my trip to Bologna, I sought a local gelato in Borough Market instead. By Ruby Wright This item was originally published on airmail.news. Read on Air Mail →

##### This week, don’t miss a history of the North Korean personality cult, a Nobel laureate’s memoir of growing up in Communist Romania, and new essays by David Sedaris By Jim Kelly North Korea is as much a personality cult as it is a nation, and Jonathan Cheng does a masterful job explaining how the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, pulled it off. It helped that he was the son of two fervent Christians and grew up during a period of such high missionary zeal that Pyongyang earned the nickname “Jerusalem of the East.” He knew the power of religion and that by persecuting Christians he could become a deity, even developing his own rituals and symbols. He killed millions of his citizens, but he also dramatically improved health care and READ ON

Jude Law as Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano as Vadim Baranov, a fictional character modeled after the Russian president’s former chief of staff Vladislav Surkov, in Olivier Assayas’s _The Wizard of the Kremlin._ ##### In early-aughts Moscow, Vladislav Surkov educated me on the finer points of “pop propaganda.” Now he’s the inspiration for Olivier Assayas’s new film By Andrew Ryvkin Do you want to see Mother Russia? Not the export version—bears, nesting dolls, the Bolshoi—but the Russia of Rilke, Cap d’Antibes, and truffle risotto. The country where the only thing that matters is how close you are to the czar, and everything else—people, laws, even money—is simply an instrument for getting closer. In other words, do you want to see the Russia that existed for people like me—those who worked under Vladislav Surkov, the inspiration behind the protagonist in Olivier Assayas’s _The Wizard of the Kremlin_? The film, based on the novel by Giuliano da Empoli, tells the story of Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a soft-spoken intellectual with READ ON

Gerald Tsai Jr. was one of the most influential financiers of the 1960s and the first Chinese-American C.E.O. of a Dow Jones Industrials company. ##### Gerald Tsai Jr. revolutionized Wall Street and put Fidelity on the map with the help of one unlikely adviser—his mother, Ruth, the first woman to trade on the floor of the Shanghai Stock Exchange By Justin Baer Gerald Tsai Jr. was the star stock picker of the “Go-Go 60s,” a period defined by the market’s love for Polaroid, Xerox, and other tech darlings that once held Wall Street as spellbound as Nvidia and Tesla do today. Later, when the bull market faded, Tsai emerged as a formidable Wall Street deal-maker and the first Chinese-American to run a Dow Jones Industrials company. And he owed it all to his mother. Tsai bought and sold stocks with reckless abandon and what seemed like a preternatural sense of timing. His bold investing style put an upstart Boston mutual-fund firm READ ON

A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 departing from Harry Reid International Airport, in Las Vegas. ##### Inside the totally far-fetched grassroots campaign to revive the bankrupted Spirit Airlines for the people By Stuart Heritage F arewell, then, Spirit Airlines. After 34 years, two bankruptcy filings, tens of thousands of dollars in fines for deceptive fare advertising, and at least one instance of a passenger urinating on the cabin floor after being denied bathroom access, you are no more. While some will celebrate the collapse of Spirit—you don’t get to be the most complained-about airline in North America across multiple years without making a few enemies—others will be less happy with the news. Approximately 17,000 people are now out of work. Countless passengers have been stranded in airports without their luggage. Last weekend, Reuters called Spirit aviation’s “first Iran war casualty,” which suggests the collapse might be the lead-off domino in a global cascade of airlines going under. READ ON

_Fayette (Cockette),_ photographed by Peter Hujar, 1971. ##### Six months after the release of Ira Sachs’s film _Peter Hujar’s Day,_ three exhibitions in New York give long-overdue attention to the American photographer By Osman Can Yerebakan Farm animals were Peter Hujar’s first subjects. The photographer’s early years were spent with his Ukrainian mother and grandparents on a farm in central New Jersey, which exposed him to the emotionality of nature. Decades before his lens moved between nocturnal vagabonds in the East Village and names such as Diana Vreeland, William Burroughs, and Fran Lebowitz, the young man realized the power of his eye. He could monumentalize any subject, even if it was an aloof cow or a dilapidated shack. READ ON

The author at her internship at the historic Saratoga Springs restaurant Jerry’s. ##### What my dead-end internship at a mediocre Saratoga Springs restaurant taught me about horse racing—and the food-service industry By Brigid Washington Sixteen years ago, for students at the Culinary Institute of America, a core requirement was to complete an 18-week internship at an approved industry site. Multi-Michelin-starred restaurants and glossy legacy publications often topped the list for many. I’d blessedly received an offer from the prestigious Rome Sustainable Food Project in Italy—a victory that was short-lived, as bureaucratic red tape around my work permit ultimately prevented me from going. As a result, I was forced to take a very last-minute internship in upstate New York at one of the oldest restaurants in Saratoga Springs: Jerry’s. My time there spanned “track READ ON

By Jim Kelly Whether you think **artificial intelligence** is our savior (Hello, Elon!) or Satan itself (Hello to—you know who you are!), **Josh Tyrangiel** READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss an oral history of New York’s biggest films, an illustrated guide to its pickles, and a portrait of its transformation during World War II By Jim Kelly Do not pick up this book if you have to be someplace in an hour, because you won’t make it there. Michael Lee Nirenberg has put together an oral history of New York films and TV shows by the crew members that shot, lit, designed, and miked dozens of productions, from The French Connection to _Network_ toThe Sopranos, and it is as addictive as the coke that James Gandolfini apparently consumed while playing Tony Soprano. You will learn that Sidney Lumet was considered the best director to work with, that the famed Steadicam shot in Goodfellas of Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco walking into the Copacabana through the kitchen took at least 15 meticulously choreographed takes, and that Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in READ ON

“When I discovered Memphis it really triggered something in me, because of the combination of how fun it is and how beautiful it is.” ##### Inspired by the Memphis Group and known for her playful, wavy home goods, the French-American designer is now channeling Italo disco in a new series unveiled at Milan’s Salone del Mobile By Elena Clavarino If the name Sophie Lou Jacobsen doesn’t ring a bell, her designs very well might. There are a few ways that could be true: should you be on the houseware side of the Instagram algorithm, Jacobsen’s wavy glass Ripple Cup, which went viral in 2020, surely appeared on your feed; should you be an art-history person, her wiggly, neon-pop silhouettes might call to mind Ettore Sottsass’s Memphis Group; and should you be an avid _New York Times_ reader, you’d know Jacobsen as the woman leading a new wave of a budding design movement described last fall in a story titled “Glassware Is Getting Weird and Wobbly.” READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss a vibrant history of colors and their definitions, a visual study of artists and their dogs, and a fresh translation of _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ By Jim Kelly This is an utterly delightful book about an unlikely topic: the quest to define different colors in dictionaries, especially before color plates were included. It is easy enough to describe a chair, but how do you explain azure? The book’s main character is I. H. Godlove, a scientist hired by Merriam-Webster in 1930 to modernize their classic work, and that is when the fun—and arguments—begin. How a color specialist defines “khaki” (moderate-medium-yellowish-yellow-orange) is not necessarily the same as a layperson might (tan). The way it all gets resolved, and the personalities involved in this pursuit, makes _True Color_ as magical as a rainbow. READ ON

Maurizio Cattelan’s _America,_ on view at Sotheby’s in New York last fall. ##### With Maurizio Cattelan’s latest act arriving next week, a look back at the improbable saga of the Italian artist’s $6 million golden toilet By Harry Seymour Shortly before daybreak on September 14, 2019, five masked men driving two stolen vehicles barreled through the gates of Blenheim Palace, England’s best-known stately home. Sledgehammering a ground-floor window, they passed the room where Winston Churchill was born and headed straight for their target: a solid-gold toilet worth $6 million. Called _America,_ the toilet was part of a bigger Maurizio Cattelan exhibition. Just hours earlier, party guests had been toasting its success, posing for photographs on the 18-karat throne and flushing Dom Pérignon down its working pipes. The gang wrenched it from wood paneling, causing water to spray around the room, then rolled its 220-pound body into a Volkswagen Golf and sped down a warren of Cotswolds’ country roads. The whole heist took five minutes. READ ON

By Jennifer Noyes If you think all **mattresses** are created equal, allow **Hästens** to politely, but firmly, correct you. Handcrafted since 1852, these **Swedish** READ ON

##### This week, don’t miss a dual portrait of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, a study of Roman emperors through the eyes of everyday citizens, and a look into the collaboration behind _Psycho_ By Jim Kelly Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle towered above much of the 20th century, though it can be argued that Churchill’s finest hours were in the early stages of World War II and that de Gaulle’s best years stretched for more than two decades after it. Both held romantic visions of their countries, though de Gaulle was more aware that his was not realistic. What Richard Vinen does so brilliantly in _The Last Titans_ is to show how the differences between these two leaders helped dictate the destinies of their people, and he does so with just the right balance of intimate detail and trenchant analysis. De Gaulle comes across as the cannier of the two, but that may be because he had a sharper sense of tragedy. READ ON

By Jennifer Noyes If your **Easter basket** leans more haute couture than supermarket chocolate, the **Dandelion Signature**

By Barry Blitt This item was originally published on airmail.news. Read on Air Mail →