Books & the Arts

Sally Rooney’s Open Question Sally Rooney’s Open Question

In Intermezzo, we get characters acting out their political commitments instead of just talking about them. But is their vision of domestic cooperation enough?

Books & the Arts / Jess Bergman

The Apprenticeship of Donald Trump The Apprenticeship of Donald Trump

A new film examines Trump’s formative years under the tutelage of Roy Cohn.

Books & the Arts / David Klion

The Rise and Fall of New York Clubbing The Rise and Fall of New York Clubbing

Emily Witt’s memoir of Brooklyn’s rave scene accomplishes something that even the cynical among us cannot deny: It will make you want to go dancing.

Books & the Arts / Kevin Lozano

From the Magazine

Rachel Kushner’s  Brilliant Avant-Garde Spy Thriller

Rachel Kushner’s Brilliant Avant-Garde Spy Thriller Rachel Kushner’s Brilliant Avant-Garde Spy Thriller

In Creation Lake, Kushner transforms the genre’s familiar plot twists and turns into a study of the many fictions we tell one another.

Books & the Arts / Nicolás Medina Mora

A crowd outside Minneapolis’s Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank during an economic crisis in May 1893.

The Radical Past and Future of Debt Resistance The Radical Past and Future of Debt Resistance

The deep roots of debt relief activism in the United States.

Books & the Arts / Astra Taylor

Buffy (Darren Robinson) of the Fat Boys in Chicago, 1985.

Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop

An elegiac retelling of rap’s origins, Hip-Hop Is History also ends with a sense of hope.

Books & the Arts / Bijan Stephen

Literary Criticism

The Myths of Anne Carson

The Myths of Anne Carson The Myths of Anne Carson

Throughout her long and prolific career, Carson has specialized in unexpected juxtapositions between modern life and ancient times, contemporary art and the literature of the…

Books & the Arts / Emily Wilson

Danzy Senna’s Acerbic Satires of Art and Money

Danzy Senna’s Acerbic Satires of Art and Money Danzy Senna’s Acerbic Satires of Art and Money

Having gnawed away at literary and political conventions from within their hallowed forms, Senna has now set her eyes on Hollywood.

Books & the Arts / Lovia Gyarkye

The Enduring Influence of Marx’s Masterpiece

The Enduring Influence of Marx’s Masterpiece The Enduring Influence of Marx’s Masterpiece

No book has done more than Capital to explain the way the world works.

Books & the Arts / Wendy Brown

History & Politics

New York Stock Exchange, 1895.

The Surprising Origins and Politics of Equality The Surprising Origins and Politics of Equality

A series of new books unearth the long history of egalitarian politics. They also ask whether equality, instead of another political ideal, should be at the center of our politics…

Books & the Arts / Samuel Moyn

What Happened to the Democratic Majority?

What Happened to the Democratic Majority? What Happened to the Democratic Majority?

Today the march of class dealignment feels like an inexorable fact of American political life. But is it?

Books & the Arts / Matthew Karp

Then–US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifying before the Senate Budget Committee in 2009.

The Intractable Puzzle of Growth The Intractable Puzzle of Growth

For more than a century, the key measure of a healthy economy has been its capacity to grow and yet if production and consumption continues to expand at their current rate we migh…

Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel

Art & Architecture

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s “Zion, Her Mother Shea, and Her Grandfather Mr. Smiley Riding on Their Tennessee Walking Horses, Mares, P.T. (P.T.’s Miss One of a Kind), Dolly (Secretly), and Blue (Blue’s Royal Threat), Newton, Mississippi.”

LaToya Ruby Frazier Rewrites the Rules of Documentary Photography LaToya Ruby Frazier Rewrites the Rules of Documentary Photography

A new career survey at the MoMA is a perfect illustration of the photographer’s mission: to reframe how viewers see the working-class and low-income people whom she counts as kin….

Books & the Arts / Jillian Steinhauer

Central Park Tower, One57, and 111 West 57th Street, 2022.

What’s the Deal With Manhattan’s Pencil-Thin High Rises? What’s the Deal With Manhattan’s Pencil-Thin High Rises?

A walk along 57th Street.

Books & the Arts / Karrie Jacobs

From “Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction,” Aaron Douglas (1934).

The Cosmopolitan Modernism of the Harlem Renaissance The Cosmopolitan Modernism of the Harlem Renaissance

A new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.

Books & the Arts / Rachel Hunter Himes

Film & Television

Gary Oldman, Rosalind Eleazar, and Dustin Demri-Burns in “Slow Horses.”

The Ornery Intrigues of “Slow Horses” The Ornery Intrigues of “Slow Horses”

Emblematic of post–prestige television drama, AppleTV+’s spy thriller relies on the dyspeptic repartee and verbal sparring instead of sophisticated plot twists.

Books & the Arts / Jorge Cotte

Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina and Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine in “Megalopolis”.

The Empty Promise of “Megalopolis” The Empty Promise of “Megalopolis”

Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited magnum opus is a flop.

Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse

The Rise of the Influencer Chefs

The Rise of the Influencer Chefs The Rise of the Influencer Chefs

How a new generation of food TV on Tiktok and Instagram is remaking how we relate to cooking and eating.

Books & the Arts / Aaron Timms

Latest in Books & the Arts

A depiction of the Broadway Linear Park from 32nd Street in Manhattan.

Can New York’s Most Famous Street be Turned into a Park? Can New York’s Most Famous Street be Turned into a Park?

The effort to transform Broadway into a pedestrian space.

Oct 31, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Karrie Jacobs

Ken Leung in “Industry.”

“Industry”’s Gleeful Critique of Capital “Industry”’s Gleeful Critique of Capital

HBO’s investment banking drama makes a soap opera out of the “useless” but lurid nature of finance.

Oct 31, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Vikram Murthi

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Family Dramas

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Family Dramas Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Family Dramas

In her latest novel, Long Island Compromise, the novelist explores how a kidnapping transforms a suburban New York family.

Oct 30, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Erin Somers

Emily Oster and the Optimization of Parenting

Emily Oster and the Optimization of Parenting Emily Oster and the Optimization of Parenting

What gets lost when we approach pregnancy and raising children through data?

Oct 29, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Anna Louie Sussman

The view from the Taipei 101 tower, 2020.

What No One Talks About When They Talk About Taiwan What No One Talks About When They Talk About Taiwan

In so many histories, writers so often ignore the social movements and underclass that helped define island nation’s destiny.

Oct 24, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Brian Hioe

US Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2021.

Everything Visible and Invisible About the War on Terror Everything Visible and Invisible About the War on Terror

A conversation with Richard Beck about his new book, Homeland, and the profound consequences of America’s wars abroad on our polarized politics and our fractured way of life.

Oct 23, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Grayson Scott

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