SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS

Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?

Beyond Imagining

Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, and Bridget, who had been lunching together for half a century, joined in later years by Ilka, Hope, and, occasionally, Lucinella, had agreed without the need for discussion that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on.

BY A WHISKER

Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.

GOD EXPLAINS THE RULES OF HIS NEW BOARD GAME

Guys, want to play this new board game? It’s called Life. No, it’s not “one of God’s impossible-to-understand games that take three hours to learn.” It’ll be fun, I promise!

THE LONG RIDE

The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.

RED LINE

With the election approaching, the U.S. and Mexico wrangle over border policy.

ARE WE DOOMED?

A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.

WHATEVER YOU SAY

Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.

STATES OF PLAY

Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve-and perhaps expand-constitutional rights?

INSIDE JOB-"Hit Man"

Years before Hannah Arendt coined, in the pages of this magazine, the phrase \"the banality of evil,\" popular films and fiction were embodying that idea in the character of the hit man. In classic crime movies such as \"This Gun for Hire\" (1942) and \"Murder by Contract\" (1958), hit men figure much as Nazis do in political movies, as symbols of abstract evil.

WOMAN, FROG, AND DEVIL

January Wojnicz, a retired civil servant and a landowner, was a splendid man, as they said in Lwów, handsome and dignified.

THE STASI FILES

Piecing together the secrets of East Germany’s past.

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS - SHOWSTOPPERS

A Tony-winning musical director faces her first Broadway miss.

HIGHER AND HIGHER

To preserve humanity—and the planet—should we give up growth?

MAXED OUT

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”

DESERT ISLAND

Tastes of Hawati abound in Las Vegas.

LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE

Zach Horwitz was a mystifying presence on the big screen, until the F.B.I. showed up.

NOTICE OF SECURITY INCIDENT

By now you are aware that you are the victim of a data breach.

MY FATHER'S COURT

The Detroit Pistons became his second family.

THOROUGHLY MODERN

Yuja Wang uses her star power to lead audiences out of their comfort zones.

THE PERFECTIONIST

Why we're still catching up to Brancusi.

OLD ENGLISH

“Player Kings,”\"The Cherry Orchard,” and \"London Tide.”

A Reporter at Large – You Make Me Sick

How corporate scientists discovered—and then helped to conceal—the dangers of forever chemicals.

Age of Anxiety

The love songs of Billie Eilish.

THE THEATRE - PHOTO REALISM

Moisés Kaufman's Here There Are Blueberries.”

FAMILY PORTRAIT

In his latest novel, Garth Risk Hallberg shrinks his frame.

THE WORLD OF TELEVISION CASTOFFS

REALITY-TV CONTESTANTS ARE BARELY PAID, AND THE EXPERIENCE CAN FEEL LIKE ABUSE. SHOULD THEY UNIONIZE?

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY ABRIDGED TOO FAR

The world according to Blinkist.

Thataway Thomas McGuane

The two sisters were growing old now, but they went on gazing toward Palm Springs from this windblown prairie town as though to Mecca.

ANNALS OF INQUIRY WAIT FOR IT

Suspense in literature and life.