After Tig Notaro stand-up set about having cancer went viral, she released the comedy special Boyish Girl Interrupted, and co-wrote and starred in the semi-autobiographical Amazon series One Mississippi. In 2015, she married actress Stephanie Allynne, and they now have twin boys.
Author Michael Pollan had always been curious about psychoactive plants, but his interest skyrocketed when he heard about a research study in which people with terminal cancer were given a psychedelic called psilocybin — the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" — to help them deal with their distress.
Jessica Jones is not your typical superhero: She's a low-rent private eye with superhuman strength and PTSD from two big traumas in her past. Krysten Ritter stars as Jessica in the Netflix series based on the Marvel Comics character — and says she loves the complex role.
Dave Itzkoff examines Williams' life and death in a new biography. Williams took his own life in 2014; an autopsy later revealed he had Lewy body dementia.
Though Cardi B's instinctive pose is that of a tough realist, her debut album allows for more vulnerable moments. Critic Ken Tucker calls Invasion of Privacy a "statement of principles."
New York Times reporter Eric Lipton says the response to a recent FOIA request shows that Scott Pruitt and his staff have gone to great lengths to keep the public and the news media at a distance.
Critic Justin Chang says Beast, a film about two lovers on an island where a serial killer has been terrorizing residents, is "engrossing from start to finish" — despite its genre trappings.
Writers, directors and actors Jay and Mark Duplass first became known for making fast, cheap indie films. Their success led to bigger films and to making the HBO series Togetherness which starred Mark. Now they have a new memoir about making films and the advantages and limitations of being close-knit brothers and artistic collaborators.
Before Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God and the other books that would make her reputation, she was studying anthropology. In 1927, Hurston's deep interest in black history and culture led her into what became one of the most remarkable conversations of her life. The book that resulted from that conversation has just been published for the first time.
Rachel Kushner's new novel centers on a young mother serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering a man who'd been stalking her. Critic John Powers calls The Mars Room "searingly intelligent."
In her new memoir chef Lidia Bastianich recalls growing up on a family farm, escaping the communists, becoming a refugee and immigrating to the U.S., starting her own restaurant in Queens, and getting her own cooking show.
An exhausted mother hires a free-spirited night nurse to tend to her baby in a Diablo Cody's latest film. Critic David Edelstein calls Tully a "strange and mythic" movie.
When I was a kid, my mom told me a story about her grandfather: That he got in trouble with some white men down south, and escaped lynching by running to Chicago. That he chose his new last name "Jones," because it was the most common name in the phone book. That, for years, he would sit in his chair facing the door, shotgun on his lap, waiting for them to come for him.
British singer-songwriter Tracey Thorn writes music that chronicles themes in women's lives that aren't often addressed in pop lyrics. Take, for instance, the single "Babies," off her new solo album Record. The song is meant to be a humorous ode to birth control, but there's also a deeper feeling to it.
Presidential historian Jon Meacham says looking back at times when the nation was divided by partisan fury and racial strife can help shed light on "the politics of the moment."
Critic Ken Tucker says that Monroe's moody new album proves that the singer/songwriter is "working in a space that's almost entirely separate from anyone else in country music right now."
A few minutes into her performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night, comic Michelle Wolf joked that the event organizers should have done more research before booking her. By the end of the set, the organizers may have agreed.
This is one weird-but-true story. It's a story that leads readers from 19th century scientific expeditions into the jungles of Malaysia to the "feather fever" of the turn of the last century, when women's hats were be-plumed with ostriches and egrets. And it's a story that focuses on the feather-dependent Victorian art of salmon fly-tying and its present-day practitioners, many of whom lurk online in something called "The Feather Underground."
