A World War II Fighter/Fashion Icon’s Death, Creepy Totems and Hunter S. Thompson’s Son: What We’re Reading Now

Our editors are a diverse lot, and are constantly perusing a long and broad list of publications and sites. Fashion? Art? Architecture? Culinary studies? In What We’re Reading, PaperCity shares the wealth.

She was the editor of French Vogue, she won the Prix Goncourt, and she was a World War II resistance fighter. Her name was Edmonde Charles-Roux, and she passed away on Wednesday in Marseille at 95

If you like literature, fashion, and living a rich life in general, you should know about her and her accomplishments. Here’s a place to start. She had a great smile, and she angered Coco Chanel. That’s just a start.

Relics. You know, a collar once worn by Emily Brontë‘s dog, Keeper. Shelley’s jaw. Keats’ hair. The Victorians had a thing for these totems, in a manner we might find creepy or perhaps even illegal. A professor of literature at the University of Louisville has written a wonderful book on the subject, and you can read a review of it here.

Hunter S. Thompson was a larger-than-life man, whose talents were prodigious, and whose excesses crippled those talents. Did you know he had a son? Here’s a look at his tale, and it is one full of adventure and loss.

This guy sells a lot of books. A lot. He’s diligent, of course, and he jokes that he writes on “the verge of a stroke.” That’s because he smokes 26 Camels and drinks a prodigious amount of coffee every day. And fans can’t get enough of his Reacher novels. For a look at his methods, read this.

Finally this week, 500 words from Aura Satz on her solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary, Her Marks, a Measure.