Books & Culture

With their deranged portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln, the actor and writer emerges from the “gay shadows” in a hysterical farce.

The platform interface has gradually made it harder to find the music I want to listen to. With the latest app updates, I’d had enough.

Our nightmares may be haunted by circling dorsal fins—but there’s something more sinister happening below the surface of the sea.

The magical in-betweenness—and surprising epidemiological history—of the porch.

You could be involved in other people’s wanting, whether you knew it or not.

Our editors and critics review notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

The creative life is shrouded in mystery. Two new books try to discover what it takes.

“Godwin,” “Fire Exit,” “Private Revolutions,” and “Thom Gunn.”

A new documentary based on 1964 interviews lays bare the gap between private self and public image.

This 1990 drama reveals, in documentary-like detail, the power and the politics of an illegal cockfighting ring.

This rom-com about the marketing of the Apollo space program, starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, has an inconsistent tone and a vague point of view.

The actor and director, whose film “Horizon: An American Saga” has been in the making for decades, thinks of the Western as America’s Shakespeare.

Hallie Meyer’s gelato project expands from Union Square to Greenpoint, offering bounteous daily flavors topped with luscious imported Italian cream.

What to do with fruit that can’t perform solo.

The town’s restaurants evince a singular mix of gay utopia and New England kitsch.

Clover Hill offers the kind of technique-oriented cooking that usually emerges from the city’s billionaire canteens—and prices to match.

Ruth Negga and Peter Sarsgaard also star in this adaptation of the 1987 Scott Turow novel.

In his new video for “Not Like Us,” the hip-hop artist claims victory in his long battle with Drake.

The FX series about the fallout from a leaked recording of the Los Angeles Clippers’ owner is extremely entertaining, especially if you are not hoping to learn anything about race.

The Hulu series about a Chicago sandwich joint once felt like the best kind of prestige TV—but the new season, like its Michelin-hungry protagonist, has lost sight of what made it great.

A series of international productions held power to account at a fraught moment.

The directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch cross Andrew Lloyd Webber’s juggernaut musical with queer ballroom culture to electrifying effect.

The British playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s “The Welkin” exorcises the jury-room drama.

Samm-Art Williams’s “Home,” on Broadway, and Shayan Lotfi’s “What Became of Us,” at Atlantic Theatre Company, portray the politics and the emotions of leaving home.

Damien Geter’s “American Apollo,” at Des Moines Metro Opera, along with revivals of Debussy and Strauss.

How the Tuareg band merges political anguish and musical transcendence.

The artist discusses her new album, moving upstate, and the wallop and jolt of romantic connection.

“Regional Mexican” music is booming, but one young singer is in no mood to celebrate.