Culture & ideas
2920 discoveries · Hand-picked discoveries from the open web, newest first.
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The Millions’ Great Fall 2026 Book Preview
The busiest season of the publishing year is upon us, bringing a deluge of books to sift through as you curate your TBR list. We’ve got you covered. Below, you’ll find some 130 books out this fall that we’re excited about here at The Millions. Some we’ve already read in galley form; others we’re simply … The post The Millions’ Great Fall 2026 Book Preview appeared first on The Millions .
The Millions · EN
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I Will Never Be the Pianist My Father Loves Best
An excerpt from Hudson by Hernán Ronsino, translated by Mallory Craig-Kuhn When Navia finally says my father is dead, I am about to go on stage to play. I don’t know why it is that in transcendent moments I always think of trivial things: the world opens out into a multitude of dots, and I […] The post I Will Never Be the Pianist My Father Loves Best appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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THE RADIANCE Finds Narrative Juice in the Ancient Greeks’ Forms of Love
I first encountered Ayad Akhtar’s work when I saw his groundbreaking play Disgraced towards the end of its Broadway run at the Lyceum Theater in New York City and before it won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The night was electric, on-stage and off-stage. I attended the show with my older sister and together […] The post THE RADIANCE Finds Narrative Juice in the Ancient Greeks’ Forms of Love appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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Essential Witchy Reads, Recommended by a Witch
I am a witch. A kitchen witch, specifically, meaning I make messes into magic and brew potions. Yes, you can drink them. I suppose I’ve always been a witch, but I didn’t embrace that part of myself until about 10 years ago. What happened was I went through some fresh yet familiar trauma, started my […] The post Essential Witchy Reads, Recommended by a Witch appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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The Afterlife Is Having a Flea Market
He Comes With a Lynchian Flashlight “We’re like lightbulbs. If bliss starts growing inside you, it’s like a light; it affects the environment.” – David Lynch When the flea market locks its doors on Zion Road,the locals rock on porches wrapped around by moonlight.Straight through midnight he floateth down perennialon a two-lane in black patent tapshoes […] The post The Afterlife Is Having a Flea Market appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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The Power of Touch in High Art
Don’t Touch the Art by DS Waldman The first time I brought my mother to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, she reached out and touched one of my favorite paintings. I’d acquired a long-term press pass to the museum to help finish my first book, which features a number of ekphrastic poems and […] The post The Power of Touch in High Art appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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8 Novels About Spending Half Your Life at Work
If you work 40 hours a week, you spend about a third of your waking hours at work. When you add the time you spend commuting to work, complaining about work, and stressing about work, you’re looking at half of your conscious life spent in the workplace. I’m fascinated by how much of our lives […] The post 8 Novels About Spending Half Your Life at Work appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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Our Favorite Short Stories, Flash Fiction, and Poetry to Read for Halloween
As soon as the sticky summer air begins to dissipate and the first leaves transition into fiery reds and oranges, my instant desire is to cozy up with all things eerie and haunted. The winter holidays full of family, food, and chaos are imminent, but in this moment, I crave the youthful nostalgia of Halloween […] The post Our Favorite Short Stories, Flash Fiction, and Poetry to Read for Halloween appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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I Might Sleep With My Neighbor, If She Isn’t My Half-Sister
An excerpt from This Vital Absence by Sophia Veltfort Every few weeks, Dean posted a new video about famous musicians he’d known in his prime. Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd. He sat in a black mesh chair in what looked like a home office. Behind him, shelves painted a fading cerulean held slender statuettes […] The post I Might Sleep With My Neighbor, If She Isn’t My Half-Sister appeared first on Electric Literature .
Electric Literature · EN
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How Balzac’s Extreme Coffee Habit Fueled His Productive Writing Routine
Even now, in this age when the very reading of literature is endangered — or so the articles tell us — Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) retains a notable ability to pick up new admirers. But even though he may have a decent readership by the standards of French novelists who died in the middle of […]
Open Culture · EN
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The Vibrant Color Wheels Designed by Goethe, Newton & Other Theorists of Color (1665–1810)
Maybe it’s the cloistered headiness of Rene Descartes, or the rigorous austerity of Isaac Newton; maybe it’s all the leathern breeches, gray waistcoats, sallow faces, and powdered wigs… but we tend not to associate Enlightenment Europe with an explosion of color theory. Yet philosophers of the late 17th and 18th centuries were obsessed with light […]
Open Culture · EN
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Inside the Making of the Sagrada Família, Barcelona’s 144-Year Megaproject
To get a sense of Sagrada Família’s popularity with YouTubers, you have only to take a look at the related Open Culture posts linked below. As will hardly escape your attention, most subjects that consistently draw the attention of the GoPro class are not nineteenth-century Catholic churches. But Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece, whose construction alone has […]
Open Culture · EN
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Surreal Pinscreen Animations Bring Kafka, Gogol & Mussorgsky to Life (1933–1972)
What do Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, and Modest Mussorgsky have in common? They stand alone among their peers for their darkly humorous sensibilities, fascination with the grotesque, imaginative takes on cultural traditions, and a predisposition for the proto-surreal. Like the odd figure lurching through the first movement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, they are […]
Open Culture · EN
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Watch 150 Classic Horror and Suspense Films Free Online: Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead & More
From roughly the mid-nineteen-fifties through the mid-nineteen-seventies, the availability of airtime on American television stations exceeded their capacity to fill it with high-quality original programming. This was especially true in the hours when relatively few viewers were awake to tune in, a condition that gave rise to the late-night movie show. Specializing in lesser […]
Open Culture · EN
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Watch David Bowie Take MTV to Task for Failing to Play Music Videos by Black Artists (1983)
The old vaudeville phrase “Will it play in Peoria?” has its roots in the late 19th century, specifically in Horatio Alger’s novel Five Hundred Dollars; Or Jacob Marlowe’s Secret. Like all of the books Alger wrote extolling the virtues of thrift, study, grooming, industry, etc., this one articulates a middle American bootstraps philosophy and rags-to-riches mythology, while […]
Open Culture · EN
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A Beginner’s Guide to Philosophy: From Logic to Epistemology to Metaphysics
These are, perhaps, not the very best times for humanities majors. Seldom do we even hear the once-standard defense that, by pursuing a course of study in subjects of that kind, students “learn how to think.” Such a justification still points to real value, at least in the most demanding settings. Take Harvard’s course Humanities […]
Open Culture · EN
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Can You See What Holds This Painting Together?
With his sly, vacant images, Roy Lichtenstein explored the distance that technology created between us and reality.
The Atlantic · EN
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America Can’t Afford an AI Recession
AI investments are driving the economy. That’s a dangerous tightrope.
The Atlantic · EN
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DOJ’s Try-Anything Approach
A wide range of last-minute schemes could seed the idea among Trump’s supporters that the election results can’t be trusted.
The Atlantic · EN
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The Protect College Sports Act Isn’t Enough
A much-hyped piece of legislation is more bark than bite.
The Atlantic · EN
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The Time is Right for a ‘Great Books’ Revival
To build a better world in the age of AI, students need grounding in indispensable ideas.
The Atlantic · EN
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The States Where Democrats Have the Most to Gain
The party is trying to take maximum advantage of the moment.
The Atlantic · EN
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Fall Is in the Air, Part II
More images of the season, as autumn colors reach their peak and people are out working in fields, going for walks, and taking photographs, while animals migrate or prepare for the winter to come
The Atlantic · EN