A weekly series surfacing books, albums, and films worth a second look—or a first.
Three things to spend time with, chosen for their ideas as much as their reputation.
Its second-person narration makes a young New Yorker’s unraveling feel like a life he is watching rather than inhabiting. A sharp book about self-estrangement: the strange moment when you become an observer of your own choices.
Read more →Holiday’s weathered voice sits against a lush orchestra, making experience—not technical perfection—the album’s source of power. It is a record about what artists can gain when polish falls away and the accumulated life becomes audible.
Listen →A Texas oil-company representative arrives to purchase a Scottish village and gradually becomes less certain which life is desirable. Funny, gentle, and unforced, it shows how a place can quietly expose the poverty of an otherwise successful ambition.
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