FROM THE MAGAZINE

March 2023

Books

The difficulties of writing historical fiction

Historians ask ‘What?’ Novelists ask ‘What if?’

By Dan Jones

From the Magazine

Books

Why does a new Tolkien biography remain elusive?

His books and television adaptations keep coming, but we know little of J.R.R. Tolkien’s life

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Book Review

Vince McMahon: the modern-day P.T. Barnum who changed America

The new biography Ringmaster unpacks a controversial legend

By Art Tavana

From the Magazine

Book Review

Tom Crewe’s The New Life is sophisticated, intelligent and gripping

This book doesn’t pretend that its subjects are twenty-first century people in different clothes

By Philip Womack

From the Magazine

Books

The enigmatic rise of Colleen Hoover

Meet the world’s bestselling author, a self-made forty-three-year-old mom you probably haven’t heard of

By Anmol Irfan

From the Magazine

Television

The magnetism of His Dark Materials

Pullman’s color palette is of vibrant grays. He rejects absolute goods and evils

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

Art

Greg Lansky: the artist with a scandalous past

As an adult film magnate, he profited off the broken aspects of our society for years

By William Newton

From the Magazine

Art

Mary Blair, doyenne of Disneyland

To preserve an outsider artist such as her, you have to preserve the messy reality of life

By Mitchell Jackson

From the Magazine

Theater

& Juliet and Titanique: two newly minted cult classics

Let me tell you a secret: the theater world still adores Shakespeare, even in 2023

By Robert S. Erickson

From the Magazine