Into the Blue
Feeling internally defoliated, beset with bleakness, and sorrowful to a Scandinavian degree? It’s just fall. Herewith, tracks to set the tone
Opera Pick of the Week
With the recital album Baritenor, the singer-scholar Michael Spyres mines music history for sheer delight
Blurred Lines
Kurt Vonnegut’s notes and early drafts provide the missing link between his fictional characters and his own personal life
The Lost Boys of Fiction
Oh where, oh where have the young male novelists gone?
Highsmith Confidential
Newly released diaries reveal Patricia Highsmith’s affair with a married woman—and an uncharacteristically tender side to the infamous author
Shows and Tales
A new oral history brings back the glory days of the rock concert, starting with rock’s post–World War II R&B roots and going all the way through 1985’s Live Aid
The Boss of Ted Lasso
Hannah Waddingham has found stardom and an Emmy as the accidental owner of A.F.C. Richmond
The Squid Game Secret
People have chalked up the South Korean TV show’s unprecedented popularity to word of mouth. Here’s the real source of its success
The Podcast You Need
Smart takes, a new issue, and the skinny on Squid Game. Morning Meeting has it all
Victimhood Goes Mad
The tribulations of the brainy and beautiful. Tiny violins, please!
Jaden Michael
Colin Kaepernick meets his match in the star who plays him as an aspiring high-school football player grappling with racism in Colin in Black & White
A Man for All Seasons
From fashion to film to a stint at magazine editing, Tom Ford does it all. In the foreword to a new book, the author tries to describe how Ford became Tom Ford
Body and Soul
Soul music to make you move, from Billy Preston, Prince, George Duke, D’Angelo, and more
Mann, Uninterrupted
Aimee Mann, who provided the songs for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and was one of the Big Lebowski nihilists, has a new album
The Last Picture Show
The illustrious illustrator recalls the humble 1950s graphic publication with big dreams he founded on a whim with Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser
Staff Picks
This week, don’t miss a collection of letters by writers from Beckett to Vonnegut; a history of the 13th Tour de France; and a guide to the world’s most peculiar foods
