So how does one come to grips with the whirlpools of insanity that swirl around us these days? Copious amounts of alcohol are certainly a time-tested option. An even better alternative is to spend time...

There had been times when Dave Hammond, during two tours in Afghanistan as an army lawyer, had been called on in the middle of a battle to give the O.K. before a bomb could be...

When I was a kid, I never slept well the night before Christmas, but not for the obvious reasons. That poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” which in my mind was all about a home...

Since its release, in 2003, the British romantic comedy Love Actually has nestled itself comfortably among the immortals It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and, dare we say it, Bad Santa. Today, this Advent...

I’m an American architect in 21st-century New York City. My everyday silverware was designed in 1906 by an Austrian architect in Vienna. When I’m setting the dinner table and polishing stray fingerprints from the forks,...

The holiday season is here, and it seems everywhere you go there is someone with an outstretched hand expecting a gratuity. Whom do you give to and whom do you pass by? And what amount...

Best of Enemies (at London’s Young Vic, inspired by the 2015 documentary of the same name) is playwright James Graham’s sprawling, impressionistic theatrical take on the Gore Vidal–William F. Buckley Jr. gladiatorial television debates at...

Juan Carlos, Spain’s exiled former king, has apparently tired of the United Arab Emirates, where he’s been cooling his heels for a year and a half while being investigated for corruption. It seems he’d like...

You don’t become one of the world’s most exclusive private clubs without indulging in a little, well, exclusion. The Garrick Club, that colonnaded den of gouty roués down in London’s West End near Covent Garden,...

Ask Michael Beneville what his namesake Beneville Studios does, and a sly smile appears on his face. “We’re in the magic business,” he says. Consult the clothbound folio that discreetly advertises the studio’s offerings, and...

So, about the other night in Lausanne. It turns out that hope is the new dope. Under normal circumstances, a gala dinner celebrating the 160th birthday of a luxurious Swiss hotel might have been just...

Have your parents ever scolded you for playing with your food? Well, next time, show them one of Amaury Guichon’s videos. The French-Swiss chocolatier and pastry chef molds cakes and chocolate into edible sculptures—telescopes, little...

Why on earth did Jan Morris, in her long-awaited final testament, devote an entire chapter to the son of a Hungarian refugee who became the royal furrier? Over 70 incomparable years in journalism, the wide-roaming...

The power of photographs is one to be reckoned with. When it comes to the animal world, images offer a chance not only for admiration but also for mobilization. Arresting snapshots of melting polar ice...

“New York is not just a city. It’s The City.... Los Angeles is the city of angels and the city of dreams, but it will never be The City. New York knows it. Los Angeles...

Herbert George Wells, born in Bromley in 1866, did not have an ideal start in life. His father, Joseph, a one-time county cricketer, tried his hand at shopkeeping but eventually went bankrupt. Sarah, Wells’s mother,...

One morning in Paris, soon after the city’s liberation in 1944, two men appeared at the Ritz hotel to arrest Coco Chanel.They were members of the French Forces of the Interior (F.F.I.), the loose band...

While I was reading Jason Bailey’s ambitious Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It, my mind couldn’t help but music-supervise the experience. New York’s status as the most famed city...