Picks from the Archive

A novel built from a newspaper's human failures, minimal techno with room to breathe, and a love story told through collapsing memory.

A young New Yorker's unraveling, Billie Holiday's late-career masterpiece, and a Scottish comedy about discovering the poverty of ambition.

A Midwestern Hamlet, a beautiful collective near-chaos, and David Lynch's patient lawn-mower journey.

Vonnegut's invented religion, Imperial Teen's creative longevity, and Bill Murray on a road trip through his past.

A life surrendered to professionalism, orchestral dream-pop, and a Tuscan puzzle about authenticity.

A murder everyone knows is coming, cinematic European melancholy, and an Albert Brooks comedy about escaping work.

A David Nicholls novel about recognition, a North Sea documentary score, and Kelly Reichardt on making art amid ordinary life.

Julian Barnes on unreliable memory, leaderless folk-rock, and an Italian film about staying versus leaving.

A warm novel about movies and failure, an Icelandic post-rock refuge, and one night of total attention in Vienna.

The great Italian novel of a disappearing world, Arctic ambient music, and Dustin Hoffman paralyzed by possibility.