Staff Picks: Lucian Freud,Watch Dark Fantasies (2010) Beryl Bainbridge

Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, 1952, oil on metal.

Let America wonder about Untitledby Anonymous—I got my Madoff fix in Paris, from a profile in XXImagazine. A quarterly devoted to long-form journalism, with generous helpings of fact-based bandes dessinéesand photo essays reminiscent of the old National Geographic, XXIhas been a somewhat unlikely hit with readers and bookstores. The magazine runs no ads, has no publicity department, conducts no market research, has minimal Web presence, and offers no discount to subscribers. As cofounder Patrick de Saint-Exupéry explains, “The magazine’s worth what it’s worth.” —Lorin Stein

I’ve been reading Beryl Bainbridge’s last novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously this year. It’s strange and bleak and interesting, a little disturbing. It’s apparently based on Bainbridge herself, as well as the mysterious woman rumored to have been involved in Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. —Sadie Stein

This weekend I plan to check out the Lucian Freud show at the Met. Freud, who died in July, once said, “I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.” He’s not for everyone, and that’s a good thing. —Cody Wiewandt

I’m currently working my way through this little audio treasure: forty years of Polish experimental radio. —Natalie Jacoby

I’ve been flipping through Nabokov’s annotated copy of Madame Bovaryat the Berg Collection in the New York Public Library. If Flaubert’s prose doesn’t astound, then Nabokov’s illustrations of Emma Bovary’s chignon, his passing jibes at less than adequate translators, and the chronological maps of the author’s life will. —Mackenzie Beer

The relaunch of Take the Handle—an “online hub of rascalism, repartee & recreation”—includes short pieces by former Revieweditor Nathaniel Rich as well as an interview with the makers of Plimpton!, the forthcoming documentary of the Review’s first editor. —Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn

In Paris I found myself reading several postbreakup novels: After Claude(thanks, Sadie!), plus two books by Jean-Philippe Toussaint about a recurring ex-girlfriend named Marie. (My favorite, The Truth About Marie, comes out next month.) Toussaint has been described as a writer of nouveaux nouveaux romans, but he is dreamy and funny and haunted in a way all his own. —L. S.

The New York Postoutdid itself with this piece of reportage. —S. S.