Something I Need
A tribute to groundbreaking pop star Melanie Safka (1947–2024).
Dave Thompson
· 15 min read
Art and Culture
A collection of 716 posts
The Many Faces of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’
Alexandre Dumas’s novel is by turns an adventure story, a paean to bourgeois values, and a Greek epic. No wonder it continues to fascinate.
Stewart Slater
· 9 min read
Nicholas II, Aššurbanipal, and Marco Polo Walk into a Bookstore…
Quillette editor Jonathan Kay reviews three newly published history books about the Assyrian Empire, the fall of the Romanovs, and the travels of Marco Polo.
Jonathan Kay
· 16 min read
Hamilton and the Left
Consigned to the political wilderness, progressives and left-liberals could do a lot worse than shed their disdain for patriotism.
Brian Stewart
· 6 min read
Gender Bending Mobster Mash
With ‘Emilia Pérez,’ Jacques Audiard created—intentionally or unintentionally—a subversive assault on every plank of the current transgender credo.
Charlotte Allen
· 16 min read
The Worst Racial Slur, In Context
Rare is the word that has antithetical meanings depending on the speaker and listener, the intent and reception. This is one such rarity.
Steve Salerno
· 15 min read
A Violent History Obscured
South Korean Nobel laureate Han Kang’s literary experimentation thwarts rather than advances her professed concern for the suffering of everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Brad Strotten
· 7 min read
Slim Shady’s Blues
Eminem’s music helped him to cope with his own suffering. It also helped his listeners cope with theirs.
Samuel Kronen
· 10 min read
Scandalous Monogamy and Faithful Infidelity
On eros and marriage.
Marilyn Simon
· 12 min read
Peanuts in Perspective
Peanuts offered parables of existential angst and longing, described through small stories about the small affairs of small people.
George Case
· 7 min read
The Great Unfinished Generational Epic
George R.R. Martin, the Strauss-Howe theory of history, and the failure of the Baby Boomers.
Jason Garshfield
· 26 min read
Mammy Dearest
Richard Bernstein’s new book about Al Jolson and ‘The Jazz Singer’ offers a thoughtful reconsideration of an unfairly reviled cultural landmark.
Graham Daseler
· 14 min read
Architecture as Revenge
Brady Corbet’s panoramic epic, ‘The Brutalist,’ may be technically brilliant, but it is a cheat and a fraud.
Charlotte Allen
· 15 min read
The Thunder from Down Under
If Bach was the sound of God whistling while he worked, AC/DC was the sound of God ordering another round in a strip club on Saturday night.
George Case
· 9 min read
American Surrealist
A tribute to David Lynch (1946–2025).
Benjamin Kerstein
· 7 min read