You may know the drill. Every year, the good people at Pirelli (yes, the Italian tire makers) pick an exotic locale, gorgeous models, and an accomplished photographer to produce the ultimate pin-up calendar for their best clients.

It’s a shame to tag Pirelli’s annual timetable a “calendar”: Shot in a serene Pudong Shangri-La Hotel setting, the 2008 Pirelli Calendar features eleven rising models and actresses (Gemma Ward, Catherine McNeil, Maggie Cheung) all captured masterfully by fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier. “The casting was a fascinating mix between the West and the Orient: an interesting group of faces,” adds Demarchelier. He’s right.

Navigate to The Cal’s (that’s what they call it) site and you can even view exclusive content, like behind-the-scenes shots and access to the archive (check out vintage Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss in ’94).

Happy New Year, indeed.

Discover the new Pirelli Calendar.

No, we’re no talking about your weekend in The Hamptons.

We’re talking about Doug Stumpf’s (Vanity Fair’s deputy editor) Confession$ of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, a white-collar crime novel set in the fabulous life of Wall Street ballers.

The tale of greed and shoe polish is seen through the eyes of Gil Benicio, a Brazilian shoeshine boy employed at a top trading firm. Despite being English-challenged, Gil befriends workers at all levels, drawing out stories of their money-infused and morally-deficient adventures, while offering tales of his more modest but equally driven life.

After his janitor friend is pink-slipped for witnessing what might be insider-trading, Gil joins with a magazine writer (Glossy magazine) to uncover the truth behind the firing. The writer, desperately needing a hot story to prevent demotion to Modern Bride magazine, agrees to dig deeper and discovers…

Now you didn’t think we’d spoil the ending, did you?


Confession$ of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, by Doug Stumpf is available online at Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Larry


Dear Lap Dance Larry,

Frank


There’s a little bit of Lap Dance Larry in every guy (some, more than others) and Frank Vincent (aka The Sopranos’ Phil Leotardo) knows that.

Yes, Frank’s recent autobiography/guide A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man hit the shelves in January, but with the final season of The Sopranos in full swing, now is the time to get yourself a copy.

Written in an honest and incredibly funny voice fueled with machismo, the Raging Bull and Goodfellas actor offers up his words of wisdom on dating (”Getting the Digits”), movies (”Chick Flicks” - I don’t think so), smoking cigars (”What to Smoke”), eating (”Man’s Man Restaurants”), Vegas (”A Man’s Man Las Vegas History”), and of course style (”The Looks” and “Grooming”).

Sopranos fans will enjoy a foreword by James Gandolfini and interviews with Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore and Steven Van Zandt.

If there’s anybody more qualified to answer your toughest man’s man questions, we’d like to meet him.


A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man by Frank Vincent and Steve Prigge is available online at Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

To celebrate the infamous desert neon lights (and the memorable drinking binges and lap dances that accompany them), Assouline proudly gives you Jennifer Worthington’s In the Spirit of Las Vegas.

The latest in a series that’s idolized Cannes, Miami Beach, and St. Tropez, In the Spirit of Las Vegas chronicles the rise of a drab one-horse outpost to the world’s favorite adult playground.

You’ll drool over the luscious, nearly-nude blond showgirl on the cover seizing you with a come hither stare, but it’s what’s inside her that counts. Apart from fascinating history and colorful photos, Worthington (a Vegas veteran) includes a guide to the city’s best hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, entertainment venues, and other vital stats.

Just because you can’t physically spend every day in the company of the suites at the Wynn, cocktails at Ghostbar, and hospitable ladies of Glitter Gulch, that doesn’t mean your coffee table should be denied a good time.


In the Spirit of Las Vegas, by Jennifer Worthington hits shelves early this Summer, and retails for $40.

Luckily for you, S Magazine excels in the art of erotic fashion photography. Launched in 2004, the bi-annual Danish publication relies on an all-star team of photographers, including (Arena Magazine favorite) Rankin to conceptualize images that are highly artistic and luxurious without losing their sense of risqué.

Each 300-or-so page issue pays homage to a particular theme. For their fourth issue and U.S. launch, the editorial team went with the theme “Diversity” and premiered an exhibit at Milk Studio Gallery (in Chelsea through Friday) featuring the best photography from their latest issue. Each photo is truly a piece of art that’s meant to be hung in a gallery or displayed on a coffee table, not folded up and scrunched under your mattress.

After checking out the issue and exhibition, you’ll wish diversity were celebrated more often.


View S Magazine.



The girls of your dreams can also be found in the pages of American Women, a new coffee-table book by an old rocker named Bryan Adams.

The concept is clever enough: collaborate with Calvin Klein to celebrate a bunch of accomplished women, think Hilary and Nan Kempner - sprinkle essential eye candy: Cindy and Amber Valletta, release right before Summer and voilà, a true page turner for every man who prefers lad magazines over literary reviews.

See, reading is fundamental.



Available online at powerhousebooks.com.

It’s also why you’ll appreciate the fine art that is the Pirelli Calendar.

If you already know about the A-list models that headline this year’s exquisite calendar, just skip ahead to PirelliCal.com. For the rest of us, Pirelli is mostly known for Italian tires. But once upon a time, forty years ago, one of their marketing execs dreamt up the idea of a luscious, pinup calendar for their best clients.

Along the way, they’ve brought on superstar photographers and shot some of the world’s most beautiful women in (almost) equally gorgeous surroundings.

For this year’s calendar, rock star photographer Patrick Demarchelier, along with Adriana Lima, Filippa Hamilton, and Valentina, among others, were sent to Rio de Janeiro. Their mission was simple: capture the essence of Carnival in black-and-white while posing in sexy swimsuits.

Mission: accomplished.

Available online at PirelliCal.com.

The one that’s weighs too much, is too big to open up on the train, and costs too much to subscribe to, but you buy it anyway because you need to have it.

Wallpaper is our favorite magazine, too. It’s not only the best designed magazine in the world but also the journal of choice for jet-setters.

Naturally, we’ve been stalking their website for years. And years. And, so it gives us great pleasure to introduce the new Wallpaper.com.

As you might expect from Wallpaper, the online version is chock full of centerfold-quality photos of food, fashion, architecture, and exotic destinatons.

Surf the new Wallpaper.com.