Family Values
In a new book, a son pays homage to his mother, a muckraking investigative journalist
The Girl with the Gimlet Eye
New York writer Natasha Stagg translated her exacting cultural critiques into work for big brands. Her latest book grapples with questions about social media, identity, and authenticity in our increasingly online world
His Back Pages
Alongside the opening of the Bob Dylan Center, in Tulsa, comes a giant new volume of handwritten lyrics, letters from friends including George Harrison, and rare manuscripts
The Life and Legend of Maggie Higgins
She was one of the few female war correspondents assigned to W.W. II and Korea. A new book details Higgins’s intrepid life, both in the field and amid the misogyny of the 20th-century news industry
After-School Activity
While spies are frequently portrayed as hardened, middle-aged men, a new book reveals that undercover agents are often twentysomething women
Arnold’s Fourth Act
“Calves are the biceps of the legs!”—and other pearls of wisdom from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new self-help book
The Shock of the Old
An exhibition of 28 nearly 400-year-old paintings was the global cultural event of 2023. Why?
Kids These Days
A delightful new picture book explores one of children’s favorite pastimes: speculating about the future
Hip-Hop and Happening
Three new coffee-table books celebrate hip-hop—which originated in New York’s South Bronx 50 years ago—as a musical genre and cultural movement
The Final Debrief
Who was John le Carré? A new documentary and book uncover fresh clues
A Closed Book
With its opaque criteria and global purview, judging literature’s prestigious Nobel Prize is often a thankless task
Facing the Music
An homage to Summer Stock, an overlooked 1950s musical starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly
Twentieth-Century Woman
A new book collects 100 images taken by Lee Miller, the intrepid photographer, war correspondent, and Surrealist muse, played by Kate Winslet in an upcoming film
Terminal Hilarity
How three guys from the Milwaukee suburbs re-invented American comedy
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss an audiobook murder mystery involving cellist prodigies, an intimate history of Manhattan’s Public Theater, and a globe-maker’s exploration of his craft
