Books & the Arts

Agnes Callard and the Examined Life

Agnes Callard and the Examined Life Agnes Callard and the Examined Life

In her new book, Callard makes the case that we should all live more philosophically but where does politics fit in?

Apr 8, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Olúfémi O. Táíwò

Donald Trump and Roy Cohn at a press conference.

Donald Trump’s Long Con Donald Trump’s Long Con

Trump’s “Art of” trilogy may be full of willful exaggeration but the books also reveal how the 1980s and ’90s formed his dog-eat-dog worldview. 

Apr 7, 2025 / Books & the Arts / John Ganz

The Excesses of “Mickey 17”

The Excesses of “Mickey 17” The Excesses of “Mickey 17”

Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi blockbuster is both the director’s simplest and most unwieldy feature yet.

Apr 3, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Phoebe Chen

A man walks past a statue of Charles de Gaulle, with a cardboard speech bubble reading “LONG LIVE THE FREE ZAD” as hundreds of opponents to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport and ZAD activists gather to demand a collective management of the land planned for the airport’s construction, 2018.

Living and Learning in the Shadow of the Paris Commune Living and Learning in the Shadow of the Paris Commune

Kristin Ross’s The Commune Form traces a political tradition—based on reimagining class relations—that stretches from the 1871 uprising to the modern-day struggles of ZAD.

Apr 2, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Clinton Williamson

Want to Understand America’s Housing Crisis? Look to Atlanta.

Want to Understand America’s Housing Crisis? Look to Atlanta. Want to Understand America’s Housing Crisis? Look to Atlanta.

A conversation with Brian Goldstone about There Is No Place for Us, a damning account of a city's failure to address homelessness and how it is a microcosm of the rest of the US.

Apr 1, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Elkind

The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema

The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema

Why did Hollywood lose interest in making paranoid thrillers like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor? Was it a change in the culture? Or a change in the marketplace?

Mar 31, 2025 / Books & the Arts / T. M. Brown

Feminism Against Itself

Feminism Against Itself Feminism Against Itself

Sophie Lewis grapples with the ways the feminist movement has harbored prejudices and abetted wrongdoing in Enemy Feminisims.

Mar 27, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Grace Byron

In Fred Moten’s Music, Theory Is Put Into Practice

In Fred Moten’s Music, Theory Is Put Into Practice In Fred Moten’s Music, Theory Is Put Into Practice

In the poet’s recent musical projects, he has pushed the sonic potential of verse to its limits.

Mar 26, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Nate Wooley

Mary Ellen Solt, 1980.

The Concrete Poetics of Mary Ellen Solt The Concrete Poetics of Mary Ellen Solt

Her writing toed the line between fine art and poetry, asking readers to think of language as a multidimensional tool of communication and politics.

Mar 25, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Alyse Burnside

The Art of Separating: A Conversation With Haley Mlotek

The Art of Separating: A Conversation With Haley Mlotek The Art of Separating: A Conversation With Haley Mlotek

The Nation spoke with the author No Fault, a genre-bending examination of marriage and divorce that is one-part cultural history and one-part memoir.

Mar 24, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Gracie Hadland

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