Nov. 13, 2019 | What makes a "bad movie" good? "These sorts of movies fascinate me in the way a too-honest idiot does, after he’s had three or four drinks"... more »
Nov. 12, 2019 | Guilty pleasures make us feel guilty because we know the shoddiness of what we’re getting but desire it all the same. What's going on? Ask Adorno... more »
Nov. 11, 2019 | On May 30, 1975, Nabokov appeared on Apostrophes, a French talk show. He drank whiskey from a teapot and glanced at notecards. The interview was marvelous... more »
Nov. 9, 2019 | “She walks like a bird, but that bird is a duck.” Short, plump, and ungainly, Loie Fuller was the unlikely star of the French Folies... more »
Nov. 8, 2019 | A sexy, transgressive ’70s cult classic urged rolling the dice on life’s big decisions. A search for its elusive, alluring author ... more »
Nov. 7, 2019 | In what way is Frank Sinatra the Jacques Derrida of pop music? Because no one was better at multilayered interpretations of lyrics. Ted Gioia explains... more »
Nov. 6, 2019 | The LRB at 40. Seriousness, spats, and personal ads: “Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks shortsighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite”... more »
Nov. 5, 2019 | The most divisive question in fiction: Who gave you the right to tell that story? The answer, as 10 authors explain, is complicated... more »
Nov. 4, 2019 | Writers must not only write but also perform. J.D. Salinger simply refused. What was he keeping from us? That he was just as human as we are... more »
Nov. 2, 2019 | A poetic smackdown: 100 years ago, T.S. Eliot celebrated “tradition” and bashed the avant-garde. His venue? The leading avant-garde forum of the day... more »
Nov. 1, 2019 | Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Nude portraits were part of their courtship: “I’ll make you fall in love with yourself,” he told her... more »
Oct. 31, 2019 | A new generation of figurative painters does much right, but there’s something irksome about their work: an overdependence on academic methods... more »
Oct. 30, 2019 | Social scientists have championed theories of human infallibility in many matters. But mistakes are central to who we are... more »
Oct. 29, 2019 | After years of downsizing and intrigue, Condé Nast’s glossy-magazine empire is becoming the one thing it never was: normal... more »
Oct. 28, 2019 | Since the Enlightenment, we have tended to define human identity and worth in terms of the values of science. This is an odd and blinkered notion... more »
Oct. 26, 2019 | The London Review of Books has reached its 40th anniversary. But its influential editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, isn't celebrating... more »
Oct. 25, 2019 | What's become of commanding critics in the past 20 years? Most have died — and it's no longer obvious how much literary matters matter... more »
Oct. 24, 2019 | The politics of bread. From the Roman cry of “bread and circuses” to the suffragettes’ “bread and roses,” flour has had a highly political role in history... more »
Oct. 23, 2019 | The unhappiness of Andrea Long Chu — the critic talks gender dysphoria, trans theory, and why she’s in a “sexless marriage” with herself... more »
Oct. 22, 2019 | Curiosity is a frustratingly fickle sensation. Want to ensure that you channel your curiosity well? Read more Arts & Letters Daily... more »
Oct. 21, 2019 | What Salinger left behind: family photos, annotations on spiritual texts, notes for a lawsuit against a con man impersonating him... more »
Oct. 19, 2019 | At his best, Slavoj Žižek is a posturing charlatan. At his worst, he is repetitive, reactionary, at times even racist... more »
Oct. 18, 2019 | When the Times called A.O. Scott about a film-critic job, he had written just one film review and hadn’t been to the movies in a year... more »
Oct. 17, 2019 | Ask a speaker of English, Tahitian, or Swahili how many colors there are, and you’re likely to get the same answer: 11. How come?... more »
Oct. 16, 2019 | Ron Vara has a back story, a Harvard pedigree, and strong views on China. He's also a figment of the Trump adviser Peter Navarro's imagination... more »