Kill all your darlings

In this collection of stylish and cogent essays, cultural historian Luc Sante offers his incomparable take on icons from Arthur Rimbaud to Allen Ginsberg, Rudolph Giuliani to Robert Mapplethorpe, New York to New Jersey, Buddy Bolden to Bob Dylan, Magritte to Tintin, along with meditations on cigarettes, the invention of the blues, hipness, New Year's Eve, and more.