After publishing her first novel when she was 21, Brittany Newell started working as a dominatrix. The job gave her time to write — and plenty of material to draw from. Her new novel is Soft Core.
As a kid, Grande loved singing karaoke with her family. "I looked up to Whitney and Mariah and Celine endlessly," she says. "I think that's a large part of the reason why I learned to sing."
Sarah Wildman's daughter Orli died at age 14. "She would sometimes ask me, 'What do you think I did to deserve this?' And of course, that's not an answerable question," Wildman says.
This Oscar-nominated documentary, which tells the story of the Israeli military's demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, was created by a team of two Palestinian and two Israeli filmmakers.
Adam Haslett's compelling novel focuses on the strained relationship between an asylum lawyer and his mother. It's a beautiful appreciation of the all-too-human mess of life.
"Smartphones make our alone time feel more crowded than it used to be," says journalist Derek Thompson. His article in The Atlantic is called "The Anti-Social Century."
Imani Perry traces the history and symbolism of the color blue, from the indigo of the slave trade, to Coretta Scott King's wedding dress, to present day cobalt mining. Her new book is Black in Blues.
Questlove's documentary, Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music, highlights the show's most iconic musical performances and comedy sketches — and addresses the show's "unhummable" theme song.
In Steven Soderbergh's supernatural thriller Presence, a family finds they aren't alone in their new house. It's a ghost story told masterfully from the ghost's point of view.
Pamela Anderson's role as a lifeguard on Baywatch made her a global sex symbol in the '90s. But she longed to be taken seriously as a performer and person. Her new film is The Last Showgirl.
Eisenberg's film follows two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland, which includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp. The story draws on his own family history — and his struggle with OCD.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives a phenomenal performance as a profoundly unhappy woman. There isn't a lot of plot, but director Mike Leigh builds his stories from the details and detritus of daily life.
Rape kits were widely known as "Vitullo Kits" after a Chicago police sergeant. But a new book tells the story of Marty Goddard, a community activist who worked with runaway teenagers in the 1970s.
After a 1990 wildfire destroyed his home and possessions, Iyer started over. The loss led him to a Benedictine monastery, where he found comfort and compassion in solitude. His new memoir is Aflame.
A good comedian has to "know what regular people are going through," he says. In his new Hulu special, Lonely Flowers, Wood riffs on how isolation has sent society spiraling.
