As the granddaughter of Hungarian Holocaust survivors, British author Natalie Livingstone wasn’t just fascinated by World War II history, she was determined to excavate it. While negotiating the galleries inside London’s Imperial War Museum, she found herself beholding an arresting 6-foot oil painting simply titled “The Nuremberg Trial.” The defining artwork of the “trial of … Read more
Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle certainly looks the part. So does the Tower of London. But an ammunition bunker in South Dakota — especially one advertised as a place to go “glamping” — isn’t what one normally thinks of as a castle. In his new book, “Castles: A Fortified History of the World” (Viking, Nov. 3), historian … Read more
Behind the absurd outfits, garish bling, imbecilic interactions and Caribbean-cockney slang of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Ali G: Who Iz I?” lies an unsettling indictment of how extreme the extremists have become on both ends of the spectrum since the last Ali G film in 2002. The premise of the mockumentary is straightforward. Twenty-four years after … Read more
Have we reached peak J.R.R. Tolkien oversaturation? The Tolkien estate has been doling out licenses for tv shows, games, movies, books and toys like they’re rings of power. We once knew little about the mysterious world of Middle-earth — now we might know far too much. Enter into this fray “The King Under the Mountain: … Read more
In Japan, Feb. 22 is National Cat Day — the Japanese words for two and meow sound alike, so 2/22 is meow-meow-meow day. But for American publishers, every day seems worth celebrating as Japanese cat day. An apparently limitless supply of translations featuring felines on the cover now lines the shelves of any given bookstore. … Read more
In 2010, welfare officials in Tokyo tried to visit Sogen Kato, a local man living in the city’s Adachi district, to congratulate him on his 111th birthday. Their records identified him as the oldest man in the city, but his family kept turning them away, saying he didn’t want visitors or had taken a trip somewhere … Read more
Fiction writers are constantly exhorted: Write what you know! To explore something all too real — the distorted way mental illness is regarded today — author Freddie DeBoer picks up that venerable admonition and runs with it. In his new book “All in Your Head: Illness as Identity, Trauma as Fashion, and the Desire to … Read more
Anthony Bourdain’s memoir-in-essays, “Kitchen Confidential,” was first published in the year 2000, when the domestic economy was roaring, and with it the restaurant and travel industries. There had once been a wide gulf between the upscale Le Cirque and downscale Papaya King crowds, but “Kitchen Confidential” helped bring the hungry middle populace to the table … Read more
Do GLP-1s curb drug and alcohol addiction? And if they do, can they also help curb crime, homelessness and even child abuse and neglect? A new $13 million clinical trial announced this week may start to answer these questions. With support from the Arnold Foundation, the Center for Addiction Science, Policy and Research (CASPR) and the Allegheny County Department … Read more
A date in Ben Meer’s early 20s turned into an assessment of everything he was doing wrong. “You dress in baggy clothes,” his date, a Dutch woman, told him. “You eat too fast. You walk without grace. You don’t speak a second language. You can’t cook …” Her list of his shortcomings “was longer than … Read more
There are few things stranger than reading a highly anticipated new book — in this case, Tracy Daugherty’s biography “Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited” (St. Martin’s Press, Oct. 6) — only to find yourself cited in it. My admittedly slight contribution to the afterlife of McCarthy was to have written an article in 2024 that … Read more
Dating, sex, bad marriages and even stealing pepper mills. Life after 60 is hardly boring as portrayed in the short story anthology “20 Over 60” (Regal House, Oct. 6). In a counterpoint to today’s media obsession with longevity and youth, the collection offers lively snapshots of later life from literary heavy hitters, such as Paul … Read more
We live in a time of dizzying change. Our society is polarized by warring political and cultural beliefs. Violence stalks our streets and even our schools. It feels like we are at the edge of a precipice. But we have been there before. One hundred and seventy years ago, San Francisco, the epicenter of today’s … Read more
It was the role of his lifetime. In the late 1980s, New York prosecutor Edward McDonald was an informal advisor on “Goodfellas.” He told director Martin Scorsese’s team about his work, in real life, with mobster Henry Hill — the protagonist in the film who is played by Ray Liotta — and helped them get … Read more
Thirty-five years ago, a film crew descended on my high school, Worcester Academy. Trailers filled with cameras and costumes arrived at the end of the summer before my sophomore year to shoot a movie about a prep school set in the 1950s. Apparently, our gym and pool, unrenovated for decades, were perfect for the vibe. … Read more
Do the crossword every day. Exercise 150 minutes per week. Follow the Mediterranean diet. While for most people these commandments of healthy living lower the risk of developing dementia with advancing age, in some individuals cognitive decline is unrelated to what they do, or fail to do. It is coded in their DNA, tied to … Read more
Beginning on Valentine’s Day of 1989, the Booker Prize winning author Salman Rushdie had a sword hanging over his head. For a period of time, threats of death followed him everywhere. The bloody culmination of his life spent alternately on the run and in public — with near-lethal consequences — is captured in “Knife: The … Read more
For a movie about people who live to party, the set of the 2003 comedy classic “Old School” practiced what it preached. In his new book, “Funny Business: The Old-School Wedding Crashers and Knocked-Up Virgins Who Changed Comedy Forever,” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Oct. 6), Matt Singer writes of how, between takes on “Old School,” Snoop … Read more
Jack Forbes/NY Post Design Robert Harris (Doubleday)The author of “Conclave” and “The Cicero Trilogy” returns to Ancient Rome with a book focusing on Emperor Augustus’ right-hand man, Agrippa. Out now Marlon James (Riverhead Books)The recipient of breathless reviews and long-listed for the Booker Prize, this crime story is set in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late … Read more
Before Freddie Mercury put a gun against a man’s head and pulled the trigger, he considered sending him off to war. An early draft of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the 1975 hit that would define the band, included the verse, “Mama, there’s a war began / I’ve got to leave tonight,” according to “A Life in … Read more