Culture
The New Yorker
SEASON OF DISCONTENT
Gustavo Dudamel at the New York Philharmonic; \"Kavalier & Clay\" at the Met.
6 min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
For someone openly campaigning to get a Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump has been going about it in an unusual way. Early last month, the President proclaimed in a press conference that the Department of Defense would thereafter be known as the Department of War. At the same briefing, the presumed new Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, promised that the armed forces will deliver “maximum lethality” that won't be “politically correct.” That was a few days after Trump had ordered the torpedoing of a small boat headed out of Venezuela, which he claimed was piloted by “narco-terrorists,” killing all eleven people on board, rather than, for instance, having it stopped and inspected. After some military-law experts worried online that this seemed uncomfortably close to a war crime, Vice-President J. D. Vance posted, “Don't give a shit.”
4 min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
THESE BLACK BOOTS ARE DIFFERENT FROM THOSE BLACK BOOTS
These have an almond toe.
2 min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
LOCKED IN
Two murders, a strike, and an explosive year inside New York's prisons.
10+ min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
DON'T BLAME ME
Taylor Swift's new album eschews vulnerability for revenge.
6 min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
CONTINENTAL DREAMS
African independence was a time of high hopes. What happened?
10+ min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
OUT OF OFFICE
Can a Prime Minister have work-life balance? Sanna Marin tried.
10+ min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
ALMA MATER
\"After the Hunt.\"
6 min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
THE HAGUE ON TRIAL
Political intrigue—and a lurid scandal—rocks the International Criminal Court.
10+ min |
October 13, 2025
The New Yorker
THE PLAYER
Carol Burnett in her tenth decade
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
THE WAR AT HOME
\"One Battle After Another.\"
6 min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
STICKS AND STONES
The war over words.
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
SAY IT AGAIN
Gertrude Stein's cryptic connections.
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
NOW THAT I RUN THE ZOO
President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order restoring truth and sanity to American history by revitalizing key cultural institutions. . . . The Order directs the Vice President . . . to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.—White House fact sheet, March 27, 2025.Dr. Seuss Enterprises . . . reviewed our catalog of titles and made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of the following titles: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer. These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.—Dr. Seuss Enterprises, March 2, 2021.
1 min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
Jonathan Blitzer on Roger Angell’s “Down the Drain”
As a New York Yankees fan, I spent the summer of 2000 feeling my chest tighten anytime my team was on the field and the ball travelled in the vicinity of second base. Routine grounders caused the greatest stress. The more inconsequential the play should have been, the more likely it was to go wrong. Seemingly overnight, Chuck Knoblauch, the All-Star second baseman, had lost his ability to toss the ball to first, the shortest throw on the diamond.
3 min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
BRIEFLY NOTED
The Einstein of Sex, by Daniel Brook (Norton). In 1896, the Berlin-based Jewish physician Magnus Hirschfeld published a pamphlet with the startling thesis that sexual orientation is inborn and exists on a continuum.
2 min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
DESERTED ISLAND
For Cubans fleeing authoritarianism, the U.S. is no longer a haven.
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
AMARILLO BOULEVARD
When Jean and her fiancé arrived at the Jamesons’, the Juneteenth goings on were already in full swing.
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
GLOWWORMS
Moving through the cave was like riding a conveyor belt through time and loss.
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
PANDORA'S PATCH
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Is he too late to save it?
10+ min |
October 06, 2025
The New Yorker
A WORLD APART
\"A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.\"
6 min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
CINEMA PARADISO
How Bologna became a guiding light of the film-restoration world.
10+ min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
DON'T SAY IT LIKE THAT
A legendary usage guide is turning a hundred.
10+ min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
R.F.K., JR.: A DAY IN THE LIFE
Upon waking each morning, I open my drapes, remove the tinfoil over the windows, and stare directly at the sun for thirty to forty-five minutes until everything goes white and I can no longer see, which is when you know it's working.
3 min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
NO WAY OUT
In Thomas Pynchon's \"Shadow Ticket,\" all the ends are loose.
10+ min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
Rivka Galchen on Raymond Carver's "Elephant"
The structure of \"Elephant,\" one of Raymond Carver's last stoties, is simple, but the emotional effect is outsized, numinous, convincing, and comic.
3 min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S ENEMIES
Following the tragic death of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the line between eulogy and blame wore swiftly and predictably thin.
4 min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
YOU PEOPLE
Antisemitism and its tangled meanings.
10+ min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
AFTER THE FLOOD
Ian McEwan casts the climate crisis as a story of adultery.
7 min |
September 29, 2025
The New Yorker
UNREASONABLE
The nearness of bees, and of other things that agitate most people, calms me. My father had three daughters and he ate watermelon with slices of cheese on the porch and he said once, over watermelon, that he was very lucky to have three girls: one beautiful, one kind, and one intelligent.
10+ min |