I'm reading a great book at the moment: Roger Shattuck's The Banquet Years, about the origins of the avant garde in France in the period from the 1880s to the beginning of World War I. It's the era of Rousseau, Alfred Jarry, Apollinaire, and near the end, Picasso and Gertrude Stein. After I finish it I intend to re-read Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, since it describes events around this time. Powell's has just put up Edmund Wilson's 1933 review of the book on its web site. Go check it out.