Joan Didion’s Long View Joan Didion’s Long View
Her new essay collection, Let Me Tell You What I Mean, captures what about her writing feels at once seductive and illusory.
Jun 15, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Haley Mlotek
Raoul Peck’s World Raoul Peck’s World
In Exterminate All the Brutes, Peck offers a bold new history of colonialism and violence.
Jun 14, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Ed Morales
The Unwritten History of Black Performance The Unwritten History of Black Performance
Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib’s new book undertakes an ambitious task: contextualizing the scope and scale of a people’s cultural expression.
Jun 10, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Kelton Ellis
Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon
Annalyn Swan and Mark Stevens’s comprehensive study of the British artist is a sensitive investigation into his artistic identity.
Jun 9, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Tausif Noor
The Anti-Nostalgia of Walker Evans The Anti-Nostalgia of Walker Evans
A recent biography reveals the many contradictions of the photographer who fastidiously documented postwar American life.
Jun 8, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Rahel Aima
The Epic Misery of Thomas Bernhard The Epic Misery of Thomas Bernhard
His little-known novel The Cheap-Eaters, recently translated by Douglas Robertson, puts forward a basic thesis: Life is a sequence of crushings.
Jun 7, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Missouri Williams
The Story of Sun Ra’s Egyptian Adventure The Story of Sun Ra’s Egyptian Adventure
How a 1971 trip changed the course of the free jazz icon’s career.
Jun 2, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Marcus J. Moore
The Surreal Pleasures of ‘The Masked Singer’ The Surreal Pleasures of ‘The Masked Singer’
By discarding all the tropes of standard reality TV, this singing competition allows viewers to revel in pure weirdness.
Jun 2, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
The Gilded Age’s Democratic Contradictions The Gilded Age’s Democratic Contradictions
A new history examines how the late 19th century’s raucous party system gave way to a more sedate and exclusionary political culture that erected more and more barriers to particip...
Jun 1, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner
Telling the Story of Undocumented America Telling the Story of Undocumented America
Using both journalism and visionary vignettes, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio examines undocumented life in contemporary United States.
Jun 1, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Gaiutra Bahadur