Eyes of the Storm revisits an era
In early photos, the crowds – and the band members – are eager, curious and frank
Books and Arts
Tuesday
Nick Drake’s explosive creativity
The first comprehensive repackaging of any of Drake’s albums does justice to the musician
Viola’s Room is beguiling
Every detail, every sound, every object feels intentional
Over the Moon renders the present with an eye toward the timeless
The play rises from social commentary to legitimate art piece, avoiding mere parody and ax-grinding
Tuesday
Frank S. Meyer was a political paradox
Noel Parmentel’s quote, ‘The right wing was fun back then,’ is one of the takeaways from Daniel J. Flynn’s new book
The thrill of ghostwriting
Julia Clark’s new novel succeeds both as a gripping mystery and a sly commentary on the art of storytelling itself
A more rounded picture of James Baldwin
Nicholas Boggs has written the first major biography of the writer in more than 30 years
Why Jane Austen is still the queen of romance
The writer remains supreme in part because women don’t merely want dazzling men, we want to be dazzling ourselves.
Vermeer’s Love Letters is something of a riddle
The paintings become mysteries, enticing and deserving of attention precisely because there are so few
How Esther inspired the imagination of Rembrandt
The enchanting and historically haunting show consists of more than 120 objects
The problem with Heathers: The Musical
The musical flirts with nonconformity and then, scared, retreats into its own shadow
The Phoenician Scheme is Wes Anderson at his most transparent
Everything is a dolly shot of dolled-up people in a doll’s house
Tuesday
Mark Twain’s finest invention was himself
Over more than a thousand pages, Ron Chernow identifies the emotional root system that fed the writer’s art
Glennon Doyle’s latest offering marks a change in direction
We Can Do Hard Things allows a chorus of voices into the Glennosphere
The mechanics of cancel culture
I was struck by the way the Blake Bailey combines the poignancy of decay with his gift for dryly comic observation
How to make America read again
Christopher J. Scalia knows his audience and his light, avuncular style proves engaging throughout
The enduring brilliance of C.S. Lewis
More than 60 years after his death, the Oxford literature professor and writer is everywhere
A walk through Geoff Dyer’s childhood
Homework is openly billed as an antidote to memoirs full of derring-do but it does exactly what the essayist’s fans will want
The enduring appeal of Jaws, 50 years on
It’s easy to forget that there was nothing inevitable about the film’s long-lasting success
‘Being a mom sometimes sucks’: an interview with Sarah Hoover
The art historian’s memoir is no feminist treatise