Saturday, June 22, 2024

Cold Spell — Debut novels, it’s been said, are “the bald eagles of the book world

  “Got caught up in the tide of all the tears you cried/ Yeah, you know I was blinded by my heart, sinking from the start/ Should’ve never followed you this far, now I’m in the deep end/ And you let me drown/ You didn’t even try to save me,” he croons on the chorus.

Justin Timberlake Dives Into the Deep End With New Song ‘Drown’: Stream It Now


Dark Mofo festival winter soltice


A record 3,000 people join nude Dark Mofo swim for winter solstice – video


Stonehenge solstice sunrise attracts 15,000 peopleBBC



Articles of Note

Electric guitars gave rise to rock 'n' roll. Sampling birthed hip-hop. What will AI do to the way we make and listen to music?... more »


New Books

Corey Leadbeater was Joan Didion’s assistant, for nine years getting her tissues and eating her one-egg omelets... more »


Essays & Opinions

Criticism and money. Word rates have not increased in decades, while the cost of living goes up every year... more »


Articles of Note

As much as an epistemological perspective, a fixation with the paranormal is a prose style. One such stylist, Charles Fort, was the patron saint of cranks... more »


New Books

Bigwig artists reside in a bubble of flattery and hyperbole. Lynn Barber is out to puncture it... more »


Essays & Opinions

To have children is to allow yourself to stand in a relationship whose essence is not determined by the benefits it confers or the prices it exacts”... more »



                     Klassik weekend in Praha 


Articles of Note

More than a single, less than an album, the EP is often overlooked. But its musical legacy is vast... more »


New Books

What explains the notoriously strange medical ordeals of Darwin? A new theory: Lactose intolerance... more »


Essays & Opinions

What we value above all else in a novelist is language. Consider the style of Martin Amis... more »

Articles of Note

The concept of telepathy was devised in 1882. Since then, it’s been a specter we can’t help but chase... more »


New Books

Martin Peretz is a dissatisfied man. That makes his memoir something more than an exercise in score settling... more »


Essays & Opinions

Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall doesn’t hold up as a history, but it does offer a revealing glimpse of the Enlightenment mind.... more »


June 7, 2024

Articles of Note

Is one of the world’s foremost experts on misinformation herself a purveyor of misinformation?... more »


New Books

The case for hallucinogens used to be that they would improve humanity. Now they’re just another personal lifestyle option... more »


Essays & Opinions

The rebirth of Tracey Emin: “I’ve had my urethra removed, a full hysterectomy, lymph nodes, part of my bowel, bladder, urinary tract”... more »


June 6, 2024

Articles of Note

Matt Tullis was driven to understand one big mystery: How do writers write?... more »


New Books

Spinoza, culture warrior. Does the 17th-century Dutch philosopher have anything to say about truthfulness and transgender issues?... more »


Essays & Opinions

Kafka wrote in parables and about parables. He was also deeply skeptical that parables make any sense... more »


June 5, 2024

Articles of Note

"Let’s say it while there’s still time: Jorie Graham is our most important living poet"... more »


New Books

When espionage was amateur. Early agents, forgers, poisoners, and cryptographers were ruthless and effective... more »


Essays & Opinions

Homer, Virgil, Dante… Hunter S. Thompson?Creative nonfiction is ascendant, but it doesn’t deserve its place in the literary firmament... more »


June 4, 2024

Articles of Note

"I am appalled by today’s sensitivities — how easily people take offense," says Paul Theroux. "It impels me to be offensive"... more »


New Books

Becca Rothfeld wants more — from literature, culture, politics, people, and pleasure... more »


Essays & Opinions

People don't just admire Pale Fire, they fawn upon it, adore it. The attraction is more emotional than intellectual. Mary Gaitskill explains... more »


June 3, 2024

Articles of Note

Debut novels, it’s been said, are “the bald eagles of the book world.” Why do so few successfully launch?... more »


New Books

When your father is a charismatic monster: Lucian Freud was endearing, indifferent, and always selfish. Ask his daughter... more »


Essays & Opinions

“For all the high-minded talk of what AI might one day do, much of what artificial intelligence appeared to do best was entirely quotidian”... more »