A holly Dolly Christmas
Parton hits all the right notes with her Christmas classics
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
December 22, 2020
Pawn show
Books and ArtsThe Queen’s Gambit overcomes its hackneyed ‘girl power’ message
December 20, 2020
The great lost Beatles album
Books and ArtsIt’s a real shame the Christmas flexis have not had a proper, all-on-one album release
December 11, 2020
The best video games to buy for Christmas
With the latest generation of consoles comes some great new games
Christopher Nolan wants to save cinema
Straight-to-streaming films could kill the theater for good
December 10, 2020
Netflix’s Barbarians taught me those Romans had it coming
Barbarians reviewed
December 3, 2020
The great Poetry Foundation shakedown
Poetry, an anti-racism petition and a $250 million endowment
December 2, 2020
Mostly ghostly: Henry James haunts Bly Manor
Books and ArtsIf you’re hoping for a show that requires your blanket be used to cover your eyes, skip this one
November 25, 2020
Night at the museum
Books and ArtsIs the Baltimore Museum of Art exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to sell off major modern paintings?
Meet the real-life gangsters who inspired Guys and Dolls
The musical premiered on Broadway 70 years ago this week
November 24, 2020
Look east, old man
Books and ArtsTo the Lake is the right kind of Russian interference
November 17, 2020
Barack Obama’s music taste remains painfully mainstream
His new playlist sucks
November 14, 2020
Is Billie Eilish really in shock over James Bond?
Books and Arts‘Shock’, from the French ‘choque’, began as the word for a collision of armies
November 13, 2020
Escape vehicle
Books and ArtsThe automobile’s artifice is its art, but it is still an art of artifice
November 11, 2020
Culture and anarchy
Books and ArtsFélix Fénéon, terrorist and connoisseur
November 5, 2020
Is The Undoing actually great?
Or just a run-of-the-mill thriller with a brilliant casting director?
October 29, 2020
Ten films to help you celebrate Hallowquarantine
Answering the door to masked strangers isn’t the novelty it used to be
October 28, 2020
The Lincoln Project Channel is God’s punishment for our sinful ways
The group lures in left-wing donors with the fantasy of an anti-Trump conservative movement
Sarah Cooper’s Netflix special is a crime against comedy
The real star is the producer’s phonebook
October 27, 2020
The meaning of Mehdi Hasan
What does he actually believe?
October 26, 2020
The Disneyfication of the moral universe
Books and ArtsAdults have chosen to understand the world through the prism of superheroes, wizards and Jedi knights
October 25, 2020
The sorry history of London’s Hoover Building
Books and ArtsSeveral other Thirties buildings from American firms survive in west London
October 22, 2020
Back to my Toots
Books and ArtsFarewell to the father of reggae
October 21, 2020
Chris Pratt is a role model for other celebrities
The actor doesn’t talk about his political views, so now everyone else is
Booker prized
Books and ArtsNotes on a New Orleans professor
October 19, 2020
Sensei it again
Books and ArtsThe return of the Karate Kid
October 14, 2020
Monumental Mahler
Books and ArtsThe Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 by Stephen Johnson reviewed
Morals and mortality
Books and ArtsHow will we remember the great musicians of the past?
October 12, 2020
Still painting after all these years
Books and ArtsWhile others have postured, Paul Resika has kept on painting
