The gap between technotopia and dystopia are never far apart
Mustafa Suleyman’s new book is a rousing call-to-arms for humanity
Books and Arts
Friday
Two excellent books that offer new insight into The Iliad
A new translation and critical study explore the legendary poem’s numinous spell
The great Marty Stuart, possessor of one of popular music’s legendary guitars
He stands five-foot-seven in his stocking feet, but with Clarence White’s Telecaster slung around his neck, he looks ten feet tall
Age is catching up with our much-beloved musicians
In our increasingly secular age, we worship rock stars as our deities, as figures who inspire our hopes and dreams and fantasies of excess
George Harrison at eighty
Of the four Beatles, Harrison was the most attuned to, and wary of, the mania side of Beatlemania
John Waters, the pope of cliché
Cinema’s pet subversive deserves a proper reappraisal
Understanding museum theft with best-selling author Kirk Wallace Johnson
There is, inevitably, a feeling of embarrassment and shame that emanates from institutions after they have been robbed
Wednesday
The lamentable rise of VFX in horror films
CGI is no substitute for glue, tape and ketchup
Christopher Rufo’s new book is impressively erudite
America’s Cultural Revolution marks Rufo as an important, deeply knowledgeable thinker
Taylor Lorenz is optimistic about the internet
Extremely Online is mostly a story about money
Emily Carroll’s new graphic novel plays on our deepest fears
A Guest in the House is a beautifully plotted study of the madness of isolation, steeped in the tropes of fairy tale and horror
An admirable but flawed new biography of George Eliot
The Marriage Question shows us a woman fragmented
Bernie Taupin is more than just ‘Elton John’s lyricist’
The songwriter’s book is free of sentimental clutter, but it would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the takeaway message
A diverting but unsurprising new history of the Astor clan
There is a fine, perceptive book to be written about the Astors and their influence, but Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune is not it
Once Upon a One More Time is pat, prepackaged feminism
Authorized by Spears herself, the show revamps the tale of Cinderella, weaving in Britney’s own repertoire of songs
The value — and worthlessness — of contemporary art
Should you spot a binder full of explanatory word salad at the entrance to an art exhibition, take it as a red flag
Is a Kevin Spacey comeback possible?
The actor is not going to disappear into the shadows quietly
Friday
The roots of J.K. Rowling’s contrarianism
How did the woman who taught a generation to stand up to the Ministry of Magic betray liberal orthodoxy?
Zadie Smith’s latest novel is glittering, grand and powerful
The Fraud is a consciously (but not self-consciously) literary novel
How missing persons cases work in the wild
The real science of searching in nature is the most interesting — and disturbing — part of Lankford’s account