Only in the pampered, plush 1870s, could a lawyer even dream of explaining why a client shot his father to death by arguing that the young man was not accustomed to rising so early in the morning. The defendant's father's unexpected presence...

The first time I picked up the book $tud, first published in 1966 by a writer with the intriguing name Phil Andros, I knew I had come upon something truly unusual: a literate porn author. Here was the hilarious tale of a cocky male hustler who made no bones about...

Less known than her storied husband, author W. Somerset Maugham, the decorator Syrie Maugham is nevertheless a legendary figure in the worlds of high style and interior design. With her signature "white on white" palette, she single-handedly revolutionized the look and business of decorating, helping to cure high society in...

Leave it to Dominick Dunne to die in good company. He certainly lived among the best and the brightest. When news arrived that Nick Dunne had died on Wednesday morning, after a two-year-long and stoic battle with bladder cancer at 83, the announcement seemed overshadowed by the fact that Senator...

The other evening, while watching a rerun of Antiques Roadshow (yes, I'll admit my life is rather dull), I was shocked to hear one of the ritzy appraisers describe a rare objet d'art some lucky soul brought in with a bunch of other stuff as the "coo de graah." Of...

You see their boldface names and bald numb faces in the tabloids, and on all the glitzy infotainment shows (if you can bear to watch them). They are the nouveaux reachers, the celebutantes, the Cling-ons. Some are famous in their own right. Some seek out fame like moths around a...

Originally posted at An Open Book.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave! Having ordered several episodes of Bonanza via Netflix to placate my growing infatuation with Michael Landon in his prime (I've got a thing for werewolves in sheepskin), I couldn't help...