Flâneuse
Lauren Elkin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
<p><b><i>The New York Times Book Review </i>Editor's Choice</b></p><p>The <i>flâneur </i>is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the <i>flâneuse </i>who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the <i>flâneuse </i>is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in <i>Breakfast at Tiffany's</i>; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s New York.</p><p>Part cultural meander, part memoir, <i>Flâneuse </i>takes us on a distinctly cosmopolitan jaunt that begins in New York, where Elkin grew up, and transports us to Paris via Venice, Tokyo, and London, all cities in which she's lived. We are shown the paths beaten by such <i>flâneuses </i>as the...</p>