At a time when quality foreign reporting is becoming a foreign concept, journalist David Finkel spent eight months of his life in a perilous section of Baghdad, traveling with a battalion of infantry.

A picture is worth a thousand protestations, as this NYPL gallery of Kenn Duncan photographs of Tony nominees and winners past and present makes clear.

Born in Canada, raised in the South, and now living in the writer's paradise of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Wells Tower offers a fresh ear for dialogue and well-researched characters drawn from seemingly anywhere and any time.

From silent-screen sirens to the fetching "mermaids" of Brighton, England, from New York's Rockaway Beach to vintage swimsuits, summertime has never looked more inviting.

Anyone who hasn't been living on the far side of the moon knows and acknowledges that success today depends on information: access to it and the skills to exploit it.