Of Gods and Men (2010): Witnesses to Faith: “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince” (Ps 82:6-7). Xavier Beauvois’s 2010 film, Of Gods and Men, begins with this ominous epitaph from the eighty-second psalm. It is to be a portent of the narrative’s themes of death and dignity, explored in conversation with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. [Read More]
Notes on Blindness: Set in the summer of 1983, Notes on Blindness is a beautiful 2016 documentary that explores the life of writer and theologian John M. Hull. Based on his memoir, Touching the Rock, the film offers a deeply personal account of an academic who permanently loses his vision while anticipating the birth of his son. [Read More]
Radio On: An Existential Road Movie for Our Troubled Times: As we enter a new phase of social, political and economic uncertainty, Christopher Petit’s 1979 film Radio On has a new relevance. [Read More]
Michael Chabon’s Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros: A collection that reveals a lifelong emotional engagement with the possibilities of art. [Read More]
Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard: A call to revisit and reclaim one of the 20th century’s most important thinkers. [Read More]
Walking, Poetry and Memoir: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: Strayed’s memoir is a testament to the restorative power of art. [Read More]
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: The Final Volume: The letters allow readers to glimpse over the shoulder of one of twentieth-century drama’s most distinguished playwrights as he corresponds with actors, directors, and loved ones. [Read More]
Grachan Moncur III, Some Other Stuff (Blue Note, 1965): Grachan Moncur III recorded Some Other Stuff for Blue Note Records on 6 July 1964. When he entered Rudy Van Gelder‘s studio in Englewood Cliffs, he was already an experienced leader and an established trombonist on the avant-garde jazz scene. [Read More]
On Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch!: The avant-garde reedist’s iconic outing for Blue Note Records was recorded on this day in 1964. [Read More]
Struggle and Refusal in British Working-Class Fiction: A new study explores the potential for agency and flight in post-war working-class writing. [Read More]
Entering the Labyrinth of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining: Roger Luckhurst offers a critical and entertaining survey of Kubrick’s horror masterpiece. [Read More]
Robert Seethaler, The Tobacconist: A new historical novel watches the rise of Nazism through the eyes of Sigmund Freud and a boy from the country. [Read More]
Three Days with Thomas Bernhard: A new fully-illustrated volume offers a fascinating portrait of Austria’s most significant post-war writer. [Read More]
Returning to ‘Salem’s Lot: How Stephen King’s second novel cemented his reputation as America’s foremost horror writer. [Read More]
Robert Walser: Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories: A new short story collection from NYRB celebrates what is enigmatic about everyday minutiae. [Read More]
Samuel Beckett: Art of Failure after the Holocaust: Joseph Anderton’s compelling new study explores the role of creaturely life in Beckett’s post-war prose and drama. [Read More]
Samuel Beckett at the Limit of the Human: A new title refines and condenses more than a decade of Jean-Michel Rabaté’s thinking on Beckett. [Read More]
500 Years of Utopia: Verso publishes a new anniversary edition of Thomas More’s radical vision. [Read More]
On This Day: Sonny Rollins’ Newk’s Time: Part of a sequence of records showing a master improviser at the height of his powers. [Read More]
Music & Literature celebrates Paul Griffiths: Innovative arts journal promotes the work of Welsh-born writer, critic, and librettist. [Read More]
50th Anniversary: Ornette Coleman’s The Empty Foxhole: Revisiting the jazz innovator’s much overlooked minor classic. [Read More]
Paying Tribute to Rudy Van Gelder, Jazz Icon: The most important sound engineer in jazz history has died, aged 91. [Read More]
How to Stop Living and Start Worrying: Simon Critchley’s philosophical antidote to the self-help manual. [Read More]
Richard Matheson, I Am Legend: A notable precursor to the contemporary zombie movie. [Read More]
Dostoyevsky: A 19th Century Writer for Our Times: Does Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Poor Folk and Other Stories speak to our troubled economic era? [Read More]
Living History: On Raul Hilberg’s The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a Holocaust Historian. [Read More]
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