Why Was the “Indiana Jones of Lost Movies” Accused of Manslaughter?
On this week’s podcast, John von Sothen reports from Paris on a trial fit to be a film
Marguerite Humeau
For her latest exhibition, the French artist has installed nearly 90 sculptures across Colorado’s San Luis Valley
All That Jazz—and More
A never-before-seen early scrapbook belonging to Ella Fitzgerald sheds fresh light on the jazz singer who transformed American music
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Advance
Publishers are handing out six-figure book deals to young, debut authors. How long can the bubble last if nearly all of them are losing money?
Good Help Is Hard to Find
Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter’s cult masterpiece, The Servant, turns 60
The Iceman Cometh
By land, air, and sea, Sir Hubert Wilkins explored the earth’s harshest polar regions—and the hidden depths of the human mind
A Lasting Tango in Paris
The homes of 20th-century artists Chana Orloff, Jean Cocteau, Jean Tinguely, Louis Carré, and Serge Gainsbourg, all open to the public, offer escapes into another time
Soviet Sojourn
A new coffee-table book collects photographs of dachas, colorful cottages that have dotted the Russian countryside since the 18th century
A Man Out of Time
How Robert Altman and a down-on-his-luck Elliott Gould re-invented the detective movie
Christmas Eve at the Alberses
The director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation recalls re-creating the Berlin holidays of Anni’s youth—complete with beluga caviar and rock lobster—Stateside
Black Emanuelle Matters
A saucy sexploitation-movie series is being re-assessed as a groundbreaking feminist work in an exhaustive new boxed set
The Amsterdam Diaries
The 12 Years a Slave director, Steve McQueen, and his partner, Bianca Stigter, discuss the making of Occupied City, a new documentary about Nazi-era Amsterdam
AIR MAIL’s Best Coffee-Table Books of 2023
Dazzling volumes on Karl Lagerfeld’s homes, vintage cars, and an artists’ amusement park, plus photography collections from Mary Ellen Mark, Lee Miller, and Nick Waplington, and a cookbook or two
Confessions of a Yakuza Boss
The Tokyo Vice author, whose new book, The Last Yakuza, is out now, details how he won—and kept—the trust of Japan’s Mafia
Murder, They Wrote
A pair of rollicking mystery books to get you in the holiday spirit. Plus, the best Christmas episodes of ITV’s beloved Midsomer Murders
Phases of the Moon
Under the Cherry Moon, Prince’s directorial debut—a black-and-white passion project set on the glistening Côte d’Azur and starring Kristin Scott Thomas—bombed when it premiered in 1986. Did the critics miss the point?
Popcorn Presidents
The movies watched in the White House provide fascinating insights into the mindset—angry, affable, aggrieved—of its inhabitants
Tales of a Trump Ghostwriter from the 90s
On this week’s podcast, Charles Leerhsen has tales from the crypt
