Is the hype for The Bee Sting justified?
Over the course of 600-odd pages, Paul Murray marshals elements of tragedy, black comedy and drama with consummate skill
Books and Arts
Monday
Kevin Barry’s latest novel is bursting with energy, brutality and poetry
The Heart in Winter is a rambunctious galumph of a story
Suburbia’s irredeemable reputation in the American canon
As it stands, its place as a literary locus in the American canon is a fraught one
Bianca Bosker’s snapshot of the art scene
What drives people’s interest in art is profoundly linked to what makes us human
CreatiVets and the art of war
CreatiVets helps disabled veterans through the arts
The evergreen, ageless Rolling Stones
How did the band achieve this curious headlock on our affections?
This month in culture: July 2024
What should be on your radar this July
Wednesday
An incisive memoir of life in the cloisters
Catherine Coldstream refuses to be bitter and Cloistered is all the more beautiful, and holy, as a result
Nellie Bowles critiques progressivism and the media that covers it
One of many fascinating things to be learned from Morning After the Revolution is the process by which someone gets canceled
A history of the LGBTQ+ aspects of the Boy Scout movement
Mike De Socio’s Morally Straight details how forty years of gay activism diversified the group for the better
Salman Rushdie’s memoir is a devastating and powerful account of near-death
The writer remains strong, his determination to write a beacon for anyone who cares about freedom of thought and speech
A skillful retelling of one of World War Two’s most dramatic stories
Nahlah Ayed transports the reader to World War Two as experienced by the brave SOE agents who landed behind enemy lines
Christopher Priest was a grievously underrated novelist
His career represented a sequence of missed opportunities for the world beyond his chosen genre to recognize his skill and quiet profundity
Was the psychedelic art movement worth it?
This month marks the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of hippie culture itself
The individualistic talents of the Pet Shop Boys
The eccentricity and idiosyncrasy of Britain’s most commercially successful duo should be cherished and extolled
The new revival of The Wiz is psychologically bland
The original cultural punch of the 1970s production has been replaced with gaudy, empty commercialism
The digital Ozymandias: Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian on his mission to make Giza last forever
‘I’d like to say we’re trying to be the repository for Giza’s past, Giza’s present and Giza’s future’
This month in culture: June 2024
Our guide to what should be on your radar
Tuesday
The wild times on the late, great John Belushi’s most famous film
Daniel de Visé’s entertaining — if that is the right word — canter through Belushi and Aykroyd’s lives and times covers a fair number of bases
The ups and downs of the long road toward workplace parity
Josie Cox has persuasively documented the steady but halting progress that women have made in the workplace