Culture

The Game of Thrones Live Experience Lets Fans Bask in the Highlights

The composer Ramin Djawadi leads a concert tour that’s less a musical showcase than a rewind through the HBO drama’s six seasons.

• Spencer Kornhaber
• Mar 7, 2017

We Sell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live

Joan Didion’s South and West: From a Notebook is a 1970s-era artifact that has found its proper home in the anxious world of 2017.

• Megan Garber
• Mar 7, 2017

When Saturday Night Live Loses Alec Baldwin

The show’s current Donald Trump impressionist is signaling his imminent departure, and there doesn’t seem to be a backup plan.

• David Sims
• Mar 7, 2017

The Bachelor Gets Political

The show’s seasonal The Women Tell All special could be read as a cocktail-dress-clad invocation of current events.

• Megan Garber
• Mar 7, 2017

How Large Should the Circle Around a Writer Be?

Dissecting a sentence from Zadie Smith’s story “The Embassy of Cambodia,” Jonathan Lee questions his own myopia as a novelist, and wonders how authors can be more engaged with the world around them.

• Joe Fassler
• Mar 7, 2017

Chance the Politician

The rapper is spending his good will—and $1 million in ticket sales—on Chicago Public Schools.

• Spencer Kornhaber
• Mar 6, 2017

Where Saturday Night Live Loses Its Political Power

The show feels less urgent whenever it presents members of the Trump administration as brainless simpletons.

• David Sims
• Mar 6, 2017

What the Instagram of the 1970s Reveals About Los Angeles

A new retrospective looks at a group of young photographers who infiltrated academic slide libraries with radical images of a changing city.

• Laura Bliss
• Mar 6, 2017

The Lucky Ones Is No Ordinary Coming-of-Age Novel

Julianne Pachico’s remarkably inventive debut navigates what it means to grow up wealthy amid the reality of conflict in Colombia.

• Amy Weiss-Meyer
• Mar 6, 2017

Quieter Than 1984, but No Less Terrifying

Kingsley Amis’s 1976 alternate-history masterpiece The Alteration is an overlooked—but timely—novel about the dangers of authoritarianism.

• Jason Guriel
• Mar 5, 2017

Food Critics and the Oscars: The Week in Pop-Culture Writing

Highlights from seven days of reading about arts and entertainment

• The Editors
• Mar 4, 2017

The Atlantic’s Week in Culture

A roundup of our recent writing on arts and entertainment

• The Editors
• Mar 3, 2017

Table 19 Doesn’t Know Whether to Be Nasty or Nice

Jeffrey Blitz’s ensemble rom-com about a group of outcasts at a wedding is unfortunately staid and irritating.

• David Sims
• Mar 3, 2017

In Get Out, the Eyes Have It

Jordan Peele’s fantastic film relies heavily on the sense of sight to amplify its racial horror.

• Lenika Cruz
• Mar 3, 2017

Feud: Bette and Joan Deconstructs a Rivalry for Tragedy, Not Comedy

Ryan Murphy’s new FX series compellingly shows the sexist forces that pitted two titans against each other.

• Spencer Kornhaber
• Mar 3, 2017

Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Her Next Chapter

“Green Light,” the comeback single for the inventive pop star, is an upbeat announcement of change.

• Spencer Kornhaber
• Mar 2, 2017

Future Contains Multitudes

The rap star’s back-to-back new albums showcase his appeal with two very different sounds.

• Spencer Kornhaber
• Mar 2, 2017

Conan O’Brien’s Empathetic Trip to Mexico

The late-night host emphasized America’s common interests with its southern neighbor in his latest international special.

• David Sims
• Mar 2, 2017

Stephen Colbert and Patrick Stewart Wait for Godot (and an Obamacare Replacement)

The actor and the late-night host gave healthcare the theater-of-the-absurd treatment.

• Sophie Gilbert
• Mar 2, 2017

What Was Louis Theroux Trying to Do With My Scientology Movie?

The British documentarian’s newest project is a fascinating failure.

• Sophie Gilbert
• Mar 2, 2017