With her penchant for reinvention, Rachel Cusk is a novelist who seems to delight in surprising the reader. Yet with her latest book Second Place, an epistolary meditation that foregrounds art and skepticism, it’s her hewing to literary tradition that raises some eyebrows. As Lily Meyer notes, “I’d be disappointed if it weren’t so bafflingly good.”

In a similar vein of the eerily familiar, Ren Scateni writes on the sci-fi of Izumi Suzuki, which managed to strike a contemporary chord while remaining out of this world.

Also, a new photo book from Kristin Bedford shows us a lesser-known side of LA’s lowrider scene, emphasizing the women behind the wheels.

Happy reading.