WHITEOUT: Lost in Aspen by Ted...

WHITEOUT: Lost in Aspen by Ted Conover (Vintage: $11; 269 pp.). Conover spent a year in the Rocky Mountain resort, studying its metamorphoses from sleepy mining town to self-styled cultural mecca to playground for the glitterati. Exploring the various layers of Aspen society, he took tea with members of the local old guard; talked with people in service jobs who could no longer afford to live in their hometown; attended seminars held by various New Age crackpots, and house-sat in overscaled mansions that were occupied only a few weeks out of the year. Although he was appalled by the conspicuous consumption he witnessed, Conover acknowledges the lure of the materialistic good life in this thoughtful, often funny portrait of a town that suggests an issue of Vanity Fair come to life.