Culture

An airplane after taking off after sunrise, 2022.

The Marriage Plot From 50,000 Feet Above The Marriage Plot From 50,000 Feet Above

Kate Folks’s Sky Daddy pokes fun at the need for love at the core of most fiction—dramatizing one woman’s quest for romance through her very literal lust for airplanes.

Oct 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Laura Adamczyk

Left: Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) consults his adviser, Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) in The Sopranos. Right: President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance attend the presidential Inauguration.

Trump’s Tony Soprano Presidency Is Bleeding the Country Dry Trump’s Tony Soprano Presidency Is Bleeding the Country Dry

The thrill many felt of having a made-for-TV-mobster president is gone.

Oct 30, 2025 / Dave Zirin

Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani (C) with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), left, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), right, during an election rally on October 26, 2025, in New York City.

Voters, Democrats, and Redistricting—Plus, Confederate Monuments in LA Voters, Democrats, and Redistricting—Plus, Confederate Monuments in LA

On this episode of Start Making Sense, Harold Meyerson previews the elections next Tuesday, and Christopher Knight comments on the new art exhibit at MOCA.

Oct 29, 2025 / Podcast / Jon Wiener

What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising?

What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising? What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising?

A conversation with the writer and theorist Jasper Bernes about the left after the summer of 2020 and the state of revolutionary politics.

Oct 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Clinton Williamson

Ron Padgett, 1995.

The Immortal Poetry of Ron Padgett The Immortal Poetry of Ron Padgett

Pink Dust, a collection about aging and death, offers an optimistic vision of life as a continual act of reading.

Oct 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Rhian Sasseen

The Future of Magazines… and the World

The Future of Magazines… and the World The Future of Magazines… and the World

A conversation with Thomas Meaney, the editor of Granta, about literature and the left.

Oct 27, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

The author and his mother.

How My Grandmother Remembers the Nakba How My Grandmother Remembers the Nakba

In 1948, my family fled Palestine when Zionists took over. I pieced their story together from a box of letters and diary entries.

Oct 25, 2025 / Tareq Baconi

A Downbeat Take on the Heist Movie

A Downbeat Take on the Heist Movie A Downbeat Take on the Heist Movie

Kelly Reichardt’s latest, a sly 1970s drama involving a museum theft, probes the broken politics of the decade.

Oct 23, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Vikram Murthi

Nicolas Poussin’s “Landscape with a Calm,” 1650–51.

What T.J. Clark Sees  What T.J. Clark Sees 

His art criticism reaches rarified heights—combining style, rigor, and politics like almost no one else.

Oct 22, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

Jane Fonda is reviving the Hollywood advocacy group to meet the high-stakes challenges to free expression in the Trump era.

Oct 20, 2025 / Ben Schwartz

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