Two books by Francophile bloggers, “Lessons From Madame Chic,” and “Paris Versus New York,” highlight the differences between the French and American ways of life.

After a rabble-rousing 2011, holiday readers may rush to wrap themselves in a few nostalgia-drenched books that offer refuge from the headlines.

The daughters of the literary luminaries Joseph Heller, A. J. Ayer and William Styron have their own tales to tell — about their fathers.

The activist, author and blogger may have a political career ahead of her, but she is hardly the person her mother once described as “John McCain in a dress.”

Parties celebrate the “Bolter” spirit of Idina Sackville, a legendary hedonist who shocked Britain in 1919.