Exit West and the Edge of Dystopia
Mohsin Hamid’s striking, lyrical new novel explores how lives can be upended in the blink of an eye.
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Projects
The Best of 2016
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Zak Bickel / Katie Martin / Paul Spella ... The Best Writing Advice of 2016
Highlights from 12 months of interviews with writers about their craft and the authors they love
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IFC Films Personal Shopper Is an Unusual Postmodern Ghost Story
Olivier Assayas’s new film stars Kristen Stewart as a grief-stricken Parisian fashionista who moonlights as a medium.
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Barry Brecheisen 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.
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Neville Elder / Ted Streshinsky Photographic Archive / ... 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.
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NBC 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.
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ABC 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.
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Doug McLean The Peculiar Power of a Zadie Smith Sentence
Dissecting a line from the author’s story “The Embassy of Cambodia,” Jonathan Lee questions his own myopia as a novelist.
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Charles Rex Arbogast / AP Chance the Politician
The rapper is spending his good will—and $1 million in ticket sales—on Chicago Public Schools.
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Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP John Legend on Underground and the Importance of Empathy
The musician and executive producer of the WGN historical drama discusses the contemporary relevance of telling marginalized stories.
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NBC Where Saturday Night Live Loses Its Political Power
The show feels less urgent whenever it presents members of the Trump administration as brainless simpletons.
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Environmental Communications / LAXART 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.
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Ajay Verma / Reuters 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.
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New York Review Books 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.
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Bebeto Mathews / AP Food Critics and the Oscars: The Week in Pop-Culture Writing
Highlights from seven days of reading about arts and entertainment
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Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP The Atlantic’s Week in Culture
A roundup of our recent writing on arts and entertainment
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Fox Searchlight 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.
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Universal Pictures In Get Out, the Eyes Have It
Jordan Peele’s fantastic film relies heavily on the sense of sight to amplify its racial horror.
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FX 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.
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Universal Music New Zealand Limited Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Her Next Chapter
“Green Light,” the comeback single for the inventive pop star, is an upbeat announcement of change.
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Scott Roth / AP Future Contains Multitudes
The rap star’s back-to-back new albums showcase his appeal with two very different sounds.
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TBS 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.
