CATEGORIES

TROPHY ROOM

Going on safari.

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.

WHATEVER YOU SAY

Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.

SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS

Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?

BY A WHISKER

Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.

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.

STATES OF PLAY

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

THE LONG RIDE

The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.

ARE WE DOOMED?

A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.

RED LINE

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

Age of Anxiety

The love songs of Billie Eilish.

A Reporter at Large – You Make Me Sick

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

OLD ENGLISH

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

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.

DESERT ISLAND

Tastes of Hawati abound in Las Vegas.

HIGHER AND HIGHER

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

MAXED OUT

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”

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.

LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE

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

MY FATHER'S COURT

The Detroit Pistons became his second family.

NOTICE OF SECURITY INCIDENT

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

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS - SHOWSTOPPERS

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

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY ABRIDGED TOO FAR

The world according to Blinkist.

ANNALS OF INQUIRY WAIT FOR IT

Suspense in literature and life.

THE CURRENT CINEMA APOCALYPSE WHEN

“Megalopolis.”

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.

THE THEATRE - PHOTO REALISM

Moisés Kaufman's Here There Are Blueberries.”

FAMILY PORTRAIT

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