Doomers looks at what AI means for the future
Someone — I forget who — suggested the idea of my play as a joke, and I thought it was a good one
Books and Arts
Friday
This month in culture: February 2025
What to watch this February
Thursday
An insightful account of America’s decline
Matt Purple’s Decline from the Top: Snapshots from America’s Crisis and Glimmers of Hope is a veritable joy to read
How Norman Mailer changed the face of biography
Thirty years ago, two intriguing books by the writer appeared just a few months apart
One hundred years of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy
The novel is as much a historical artifact as a work of fiction
Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous book exposes the horrors of celebrity
From Here to the Great Unknown is a tale about the intoxicating highs of the entertainment business, and a grim reminder of its abysmal lows
William Boyd’s latest novel is a smoothly gripping read
Gabriel’s Moon is the welcome return of one of Britain’s most reliably gripping novelists
Guiding young minds through the National Gallery of Art
To my pleased surprise, when I met with my tour group I was confronted with very alert and engaged students
This month in culture: January 2025
What to watch this month
Thursday
John le Carre’s son resurrects George Smiley
Karla’s Choice plays out as a clever, loving, sporadically tongue-in-cheek addition to the very best of John le Carré’s work
Reassessing Jerzy Kosinski
Why did the Being There writer’s life come to resemble a fairground rollercoaster?
The life and legacy of Mavis Gallant, an American in Paris
The author skewered the pretensions of would-be intellectual travelers
Why Alice Neel remains a vital presence
The artist’s path to success was long and arduous, paved with heartbreak and poverty
The ups and downs of making Chaplin
The biopic made its star Robert Downey Jr.’s name. But its production was as eventful as any Chaplin picture
Memories of David Niven
I recall nothing of our lunch conversation, which has evaporated after fifty years. But I do have a clear memory of the icon of cinema
This month in culture: December 2024
What to watch this December
Barcelona turns thirty
Revisiting Whit Stillman’s sophomore picture
Monday
Bored of the rings: ‘wokery’ takes on Tolkien
The chief sin of Amazon’s The Rings of Power is that it is often simply dull
The powerful, brutal story of Polish resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka
In Agent Zo , Clare Mulley has written a thrilling, consistently tense page-turner
How music can be weaponized
Rebel Sounds is an uplifting compendium of hidden histories of those who have produced, performed and distributed music in times of war