On a very cold Monday in February, a larger than usual group descended on Argosy Book Store, the beloved, one-hundred-year-old shop in Manhattan owned and run by three sisters and one of their sons (it’s a family affair—the sisters’ father started the shop). There, the model Bhavitha Mandava turned over an advance galley of Nebraska, the forthcoming debut from novelist Monica Datta. “You wrote this?” she asked Datta, who was sitting nearby on a stool. Such was the spirit as we shot this ode to the eclectic, cross-pollinating, ever-evolving literary culture of New York City, where a New York City Ballet dancer might kill some downtime at the rehearsal studio with a beloved paperback while across town, Farrar, Straus and Giroux publisher Mitzi Angel kibitzes with her husband, the poet Frederick Seidel, at Le Veau D’Or.
As Angel sat with Seidel, they discussed the book that was thrilling them at the moment: a forthcoming history of the telephone, out this fall, that uncovers the unexpected intrigue behind the invention of the machine. “Lots of skulduggery,” added Seidel with a wink. Nearby, gamely ferrying dishes back and forth on repeat for the photographer, was Chef Charles Izenstein, one of the forces behind Frenchette who is now reviving the century-old Le Veau D’Or, where illustrator Hilary Knight was a regular (his line drawings hang on the bistro’s wood-paneled walls). An avid reader himself, Chef Charlie has lately been skewing his selections young, reading one of his old adolescent favorites, My Side of the Mountain, to his eight-month-old son, along with slightly more age-appropriate selections (for an infant) like Little Blue Truck.
The shoot was inspired by the increasing number of people who have been bidding goodbye to the pallor-inducing glow of the blue screen in favor of tangible ink and paper. We’ve noticed it everywhere: on the subway, in line at the coffee shop, before a show, even at the bar. Perhaps it’s an extension of the app fatigue that has seen any number of digital endeavors replaced with a more hands-on approach: old-fashioned matchmaking instead of dating-by-algorithm; art cafes where friends not only gather IRL, but craft something with their hands rather than for their feeds; and wanting to read what your friends are reading instead of what the algorithm serves you.
You might, in fact, consider this shoot a partial preview of our own recommended reading for the year to come. “There are so many exciting books on our horizon,” says Sarah Jessica Parker, 2025 Booker Judge (among her many other accomplishments). Here’s she reading the highly anticipated Country People by Daniel Mason, “A story about a young family who move to a small Vermont town just across the Massachusetts border from Oakfield, the setting of Mason’s North Woods. It’s lyrical, joyful, and if you loved this author and North Woods like so many, this one feels like a cocoon, and exactly where you want to be as a devoted reader.” Needless to say, we highly recommend visiting your local bookseller or library to pick up a copy of this one—or any of the others you might spot here—in person.
In this story: hair, Tamara McNaughton; makeup, Jamal Scott; manicurist, Mamie Onishi.
Produced by Petty Cash Productions.
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