Ordinarily, the actor-writer-musician Todd Almond is a pretty unflappable stage presence. But normal rules do not apply when you discover at intermission that Bob Dylan is in the audience of the performance you’re giving of a musical that’s saturated with his songs — and your harmonica solo is coming up. “I don’t know if you’ve … Read more
Romance tropes tend to spark debate. Does “enemies to lovers” normalize bullying? Is “fake dating” overused? What’s hotter, “brother’s best friend” or “oops, there’s only one bed”? As a romance author, I try not to pick favorites. But as a reader, I will boldly claim “second-chance romance” as the elite trope. There’s just something so … Read more
Donald Shoup, a professor of urban studies whose provocative and occasionally amusing 734-page treatise on the economics of parking sparked reforms in thousands of cities, helping reduce traffic, create green space and make cities more walkable, died on Feb. 6 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86. The cause was a stroke, his … Read more
Mr. Stern’s life was as colorful, confusing and sometimes chaotic as his art. He was born Gerd Jacob Stern in Oct. 12, 1928, to a Jewish family in the Saar, a German-speaking region administered by France and Britain under a mandate from the League of Nations. After the Saar was incorporated into Nazi Germany in … Read more
Our “Read Your Way Around the World” series has brought readers book recommendations from writers in Paris, Cairo, Seoul, Buenos Aires and 40 other literary destinations. And at every step of the way, readers have responded — arguing for their favorite books in the comments sections, debating with each other and often surprising us with … Read more
THE REVOLUTIONARY SELF: Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual, 1770-1800, by Lynn Hunt “Over the course of the 1700s,” Lynn Hunt writes in the opening of “The Revolutionary Self,” her study of the rise of modern individualism, “people in Europe and British North America came to have a happier view of human … Read more
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | How to Listen One day, several decades ago, the writer Winnie Holzman was shopping in a Manhattan bookstore where a particular cover caught her eye. It showed a woman with a green face, a black hat pulled down over her eyes. The book was “Wicked” by Gregory … Read more
Can You Find the 13 Book Titles Hidden in This Text Puzzle?
It was early February, and Dylan Mulvaney was floating on the high seas — somewhere in the Caribbean, perhaps near St. Martin — on a cruise ship filled with nearly 5,000 gay men. Ms. Mulvaney, the 28-year-old performer, trans video diarist and cultural lighting rod at the center of an infamous Bud Light boycott in … Read more
HOW TO BE AVANT-GARDE: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art, by Morgan Falconer In July 1915, on the shores of Lake Garda, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti mounted his army-issue bicycle to perform military drills alongside the rest of the Lombard Battalion of Volunteer Cyclists and Motorists. In the hot Italian sun they raced their … Read more