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
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
Black Emanuelle Matters
A saucy sexploitation-movie series is being re-assessed as a groundbreaking feminist work in an exhaustive new boxed set
A Man Out of Time
How Robert Altman and a down-on-his-luck Elliott Gould re-invented the detective movie
Soviet Sojourn
A new coffee-table book collects photographs of dachas, colorful cottages that have dotted the Russian countryside since the 18th century
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
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
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
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
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
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
25 Lunches Later …
As the first season of Table for Two comes to a close, host Bruce Bozzi invites you to a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of his favorite moments from the show’s past 25 episodes. Enjoy, and remember to save room for Season Two!
The Old Romantic
From Dresden to Berlin, museums celebrate Caspar David Friedrich, the pioneer of German Romanticism who was born 250 years ago
Jimmy Carter
The former president and his wife, Rosalynn, had a perfect marriage—then it almost collapsed when they collaborated on a book
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?
AIR MAIL’s 12 Best Mystery Books of 2023
Richard Osman, John Banville, Janice Hallett, Val McDermid, and more …