The Position of Spoons is flawed but fascinating
Deborah Levy’s latest book is a sketch of the author in motion
Books and Arts
Monday
Why Shakespeare remains the great playwright
Rhodri Lewis’s book offers so many fresh insights and well-turned phrases that I had to buy a new notebook to fit them all in
The real Kennedy men
Maureen Callahan challenges us to ask whether our American heroes are really who we think they are
How controversial is The Apprentice?
Abbasi’s heady weaving of the antic and the deadly serious may explain some of the criticism that’s been leveled at the film
Twenty-five years of Fight Club and American Beauty
What the notorious films have to say about masculinity in crisis?
War, one artwork at a time
Ukrainian nationals and their allies have been working tirelessly to promote the voices of a people under siege
A classic monument for World War One
Sabin Howard brings classicism back to the Mall
This month in culture: November 2024
What to watch this November
Thursday
Michael Richards’s memoir is heavier on introspection than laughs
Entrances and Exits shows the Seinfeld actor’s clever, energetic, dissatisfied, self-critical mind at work
Charles Baxter’s Blood Test is a necessary novel
The novel’s central conceit serves as a sharp satire of our data-driven, algorithmic age
Will Self’s impressive paean to his mother’s frustrating life in the US
In Elaine , Self has shown that understanding is possible, across generations and across time
Back to the birth of the Greenwich Village music scene
David Browne’s latest book pivots around 1961
Caligula’s second wind
The notorious film may be the most expensive, most unpleasant adult movie ever made
The world needs more Lars von Triers
The director has spent his time pushing the boundaries of cinema to the extreme
Bud Powell should be a household name
He cherished the few joys in his life and celebrated them through his innovative approach to the piano
Böcklin brings out the dead
A Swiss Symbolist haunted by the beyond
This month in culture: October 2024
Our staff picks what to watch out for this October
Monday
Twenty years on from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Since its publication in September 2004, Susanna Clarke’s novel has sold millions of copies worldwide
Giles Milton retells the story of the Grand Alliance as a cinematic thriller
In the hands of a less skilled writer, The Stalin Affair could easily have been rather dull
The peculiar appeal of ‘sad-girl literature’
Prose style matters less than access to toxic love, pain and suffering… and a light smattering of suicide and violent death