A History of Cool
Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, LL Cool J … Janette Beckman photographed them all, chronicling New York’s creative set from the 80s to today
Putin Confidential
Eight questions with Philip Short, the author of a new Putin biography, on the Russian president’s early years—and what Bill Browder got wrong
French Exit
Five titans of the Parisian literati have left one of the city’s most distinguished publishing houses, amid accusations that Sarkozy is now pulling the strings
Staff Picks
This week, don’t miss the tale of one hospital’s pandemic triumphs and screwups; a searing account of Kabul’s fall; and a history of the Getty dynasty
After the Flood
Decades before climate change became irrefutable, the English novelist J. G. Ballard envisioned a much warmer world with vastly higher sea levels
Unforgotten
Since 2006, the site Neglected Books has championed wrongly overlooked novels. Now it’s republishing them
Making Banksy
A new book compiles graffiti by the elusive street artist, from the 1990s to today
Flash Back
Three decades on, Harry Flashman, the philandering protagonist of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, is still sympathetic
Schools of Thought
Children’s literature has been hit hard by the culture wars. Anthony Horowitz suggests giving in less—and listening to Ricky Gervais more
Murder, They Wrote
Killers, poseurs, and arrivistes … criminals with social ambition and a taste for vengeance dominate this month’s new mystery novels
Big Tobacco, but for Big Fish
Investigating the dark underbelly of salmon farming, journalists find echoes of the oil and tobacco industries
A Numbers Game
We associate algebra, geometry, and calculus with practicality and logic. But the origins of math are as mysterious as any scripture
