Hard-boiled? Or only poached in Tabasco? Either way, private detective Rachel Cord pursues multiple threads, seeking a runaway teen and why gay performers are being beaten at Miss Kitty’s Kathouse Kabaret. The threads twist and bind, becoming a tight cord of lost love [...] and near insanity.

Children of all ages will love, and learn from, this beautifully illustrated book. It tells an endearing story about a grandma who purchases a computer only to find herself in a perplexing situation; she knows nothing about computers. Will her young grandson Timmy be able to help her?

One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her daughter to work. April’s usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it’s best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children’s videos in the office, while she works.

Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he’s drunk and angry and lonely.

In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie’s auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami’s studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton’s entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.