It’s tough to find that book that you can simultaneously flaunt at the coffee shop and breeze through on the beach. J. Courtney Sullivan, however, anticipated this conundrum and appeals to both crowds in her spectacular debut Commencement (Knopf). It is a pitch-perfect portrayal of how friendships form and endure during and after liberal arts college; in this case, the all-girls’ school Smith. Sullivan is most interested in character nuances and studies: she focuses on the four very diverse friends, Celia, April, Bree, and Sally and accelerates the plot through their various point of views and backgrounds. As crazy as their choices become, the reader can relate, whether admittedly or not, and Sullivan has the astute ability to voice what the reader cannot.

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All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Spiegel & Grau) by Janelle Brown is an explosive glimpse behind closed doors at the Silicon Valley’s set of the suddenly-Nouveau-Riche. The satirical hit novel is now in paperback, just in time for beach season!

It is a mental portrait of the three Miller women; each affected in her own way by growing up in ritzy, yet vicious Santa Rita during the dot-com rush. The downward spiral begins on the morning when Janice Miller’s husband rakes in over $300 million from his IPO…and then leaves her. Margaret, stoic and determined to live freely from the upbringing she despised, is broke after launching a feminist magazine in Los Angeles, and to add insult to injury, her newly-minted movie-star boyfriend just left her. Lizzie is fourteen, chubby, and suddenly branded the freshman slut.

What’s a Miller girl to do? Well, convene in the family Georgian house and deal with the residual backlash. At first, we were concerned that this would be cliché “fluff.” But Brown manages to steer the drama away from the country club and deeply into the Millers’ minds. Brown is flawlessly adept at stream of consciousness - which is ultimately her greatest narrative technique; along with razor-sharp class satire, of course.

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Run over to the luxe Taschen store to pick up the exclusive new TASCHEN’s New York. Prior to this release, Taschen published smaller, individual recommendations. Angelika Taschen, connoisseur of global cool, finally releases her collection of best hotels, restaurants, and shopping Big Apple-style… all in one sophisticated, yet whimsical coffee-table book.

Hotels range from the super swank 60 Thompson to the more affordable and conceptualized Pod Hotel. Taschen also compiles the sleekest hotspots in the city, like the neon bar at The Hudson Hotel, but she also teaches you how to scout out the hidden basement bars, like subMercer.

And the shopping? Don’t even get us started. From the dusty bibliophile’s paradise, the Strand Bookstore to the Meatpacking District’s haute outpost, Jeffrey, one of the book’s greatest strengths is a command of avant-garde fashion. Even if you have not yet stepped into some of the stores, like Ted Muehling’s tiny jewelry store in SoHo, the interior photos really captivate.

You’ll also have a collection of the city’s finest culinary delights at your fingertips. The tome has something for every bonafide foodie. Taschen knows when to score a table at beloved gastropub The Spotted Pig and which treats to enjoy at the Blue Ribbon Bakery. Want a cranberry muffin at Katz’s Delicatessen or golden couscous at Cafe Gitane? Pas de problème, Taschen has been there and scouted out the best of the menu…for most restaurants in New York!

Travel guides to the Big Apple? Totally overdone. A Taschen guide to New York? Raises the bar!

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The Song Is You (Random House), Arthur Phillips’ latest glittering release, is a match for contemporary romantics. Do you ever crank up your iPod and let a particular song deliver you back to a crystallized moment in your memory? There’s nothing like reeling in heartbreak to “Closer” by Kings of Leon or remembering a first date by a Mika tune.

Phillips’ novel tugs at the heartstrings in all the right ways: hope, bliss, despair, and anguish. It echoes the mechanics of the always mysterious human heart. When Julian Donahue, whose marriage is in shambles, hears rising singer Cait O’Dwyer’s harmonious voice in a Brooklyn bar, he becomes infatuated with her. This masterpiece for the hip 20th-century set is at once urgent and haunting in its singular exploration of the irrevocable ties of music and love.

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Folks, the milkshake is back in style! This classic American favorite is here to stay with a new twist - actually, a bunch of them! Adam Ried’s Throughly Modern Milkshakes (W.W. Norton & Co.) is an enticing authority on all milkshakes, but with twenty-first century sugar and spice.

You won’t just find the beloved yet generic vanilla or chocolate favorites in here. Some of our favorite concoctions include unusual, deliciously surprising infusions, like the Mexican Chocolate Shake with Chipotle and Almond, Sweet Guava with Crème Fraîche Shake, Fresh Fig Shake, and the Blackberry Lavender Shake, Thinking about jumpstarting that juice cleanse or refreshing after a hot afternoon? Try one of the dozens of fruit shakes that are sure to cool you down.

Ried doesn’t miss a beat in his compilation and consideration of America’s taste-buds. Trust us, these perfectly refined milkshake recipes will have even the the most proper food connoisseurs clambering for a straw!

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Giulia Melucci’s irresistible new foodie-meets-Sex and the City memoir will charm in you in more ways than one. If Carrie Bradshaw could cook, this is what she would concoct! I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (Grand Central) is a delicious romp through Melucci’s failed relationships in NYC scattered with the recipes that initially lure her boyfriends and ultimately comfort her after the romances fizzle. Readers will feel as if Melucci opens the doors to her warm Brooklyn home and spills BFF-worthy secrets over a plate of spaghetti. She does just this in a juicy recent feature about her past as a star book publicist, the authorial process, and a tour of her home in The New York Times’ Sunday Styles section. Her apartment is delightfully akin to a Domino spread!

We should mention that Melucci is incredibly culturally relevant and hip - there’s even a Gossip Girl reference! Most endearing about her boyfriends-and-kitchen tales is her candid nature and fresh frankness - a comfortable, fluffy intimacy builds between the reader and Melucci early on in the book and grows even stronger by the end. You will no doubt find yourself wondering, “How can I become friends with Giulia?”

Some of our favorite recipes include “F*ck You Cakes” and “Pear Cake For Friends With Benefits.” Sassy, right?

*First reader to comment will receive a free copy!

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Sara Houghteling’s dazzling debut Pictures at an Exhibition (Knopf) was boasting high accolades from the book world before it was even released. Houghteling’s immaculate research of history and art attribute a command of time and place to the novel, which is no small task for a writer to conquer.

The novel centers around Max Berenzon during and after World War II in Paris as he struggles to live up to his father’s grand reputation as a premier art dealer, and ultimately sets out to out to find art looted from his family by the Nazis. Houghteling is masterful at recreating the panic-stricken mood that pervaded Paris following the war - and the desperation to acquire what was lost before it.

This is an enchanting read for those who love to become engrossed in a sweeping dramatic tale, simultaneously full of love, art, familial secrets, and devastation, that does not compromise intellectual or literary integrity.

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Suave veteran writer Jay McInerney’s How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (Knopf) will have long-time fans and new readers alike pondering the twenty-six short stories days after reading. Maybe you’ll stack it alongside his other cult bestsellers, or maybe you’ll display it on the coffee table. One thing is for sure: this is one to keep and covet!

McInerney crystallized his reputation as the leading writer of 80s fast life and urban glamour alongside his friends Bret Easton Ellis - (American Pyscho sound familiar?) and Tama Janowitz His books, like cult favorite Bright Lights, Big City, explore the moral bankruptcy that results from over-saturation in a gilded society.

This collection compiles McInerney’s short stories - many of which readers will recognize from his books. Remember the promiscuous, cocaine-addicted, vapid socialite Alison Poole from Story of My Life? McInerney fast-forwards her to middle-age, though not much has changed, when she’s sleeping with a politician in “Penelope On The Pond.” New and recognizable characters ranging from socialites, housewives, druggies, to politicians find themselves stagnant in moral deterioration, grandeur, delusions, and sad states of lucidity.

McInerney is surprisingly adept at revealing the big picture in short-story structure - a departure from his usual novel form. His characters have been there and done that and are definitely types, but they somehow manage to explore new territory in brilliant variations.

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This is the perfect book for anyone with an interest in fashion and business. It takes readers on a behind-the-scenes look into the history of how this young company joined the ranks of fashion powerhouse brands in a relatively short period of time. The fascinating thing about Jimmy Choo is that it competes directly with companies that have been around for over 100 years.

The company was founded in 1996 after Tamara Mellon, a London socialite, convinced Jimmy Choo, a Malaysian couture shoemaker based in Hackney, to launch a ready-to-wear shoe business. Tamara and her father, Tom Yeardye, would fund the launch of the ready-to-wear collection and the opening of Jimmy Choo boutiques in exchange for a 50 percent stake in the company. This is how one of the greatest brands of the century was born.

The book covers the background of key players of the Jimmy Choo business, and is essentially the story of how the Jimmy Choo brand got to where it is today, now worth about $350 million.

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It doesn’t matter whether your area code is 203 or you use summer as a verb - Caitlin Macy’s Spoiled: Stories will captivate you by its unflinching honesty and social commentary à la Edith Wharton. None of her conclusions are in your face - Macy is impressively reserved and sly at revealing the vulnerabilities that belie the privileged. Macy, an Upper East Sider who went to Kent on financial aid and knows what it’s like to straddle two socio-economic spheres, is skillfully adept at working her own curiosities and misgivings about the boarding school set into her narratives. Characters are usually not fully implanted in any one area or social class; they struggle with impermanence, paranoia, and clamour to simply belong. Not an expose on the super-rich, but instead elegant insight on class distinctions that we can all relate to.

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