Japan House, London
This darkly atmospheric exhibition pairs the revolutionary Hiroshima images of revered photographer Kikuji with Ai’s glittering but deeply melancholy visions of cherry blossom
Every time I see or hear about the many things happening in the world, I find myself thinking more and more that we’ve reached the end of days. This is hardly anything new, as there has always been something or another, ever since I was a child. I don’t remember when I first learned the phrase Yo-mo-sue (the end of days)1, but lately, as I’ve gained the impression that we’ve already reached it, day after day, I cannot help but feel as if there’s actually an even further end beyond that.
The painter Imamura Shiko (1880–1916) was active from the late Meiji era (1868–1912) through the early Taisho era (1912–1926). This is the first large-scale retrospective of his work in 42 years, and the first ever to be held at a public art museum. Shiko studied traditional Yamato-e, a Japanese painting style established during the Heian era (794–1185) and practiced continuously since, and at a young age demonstrated exceptional skill in history painting.
The Mori Art Museum and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain are pleased to present the exhibition Ron Mueck (Wednesday, April 9, to Wednesday, September 23, 2026).
The painter’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, was is his muse in this libidinous portrait of sexual desire and expression
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| Italo Calvino |
Deprived, as it was, of a covering of air to act as a protective shield, the moon found itself exposed right from the start to a continual bombardment of meteorites and to the corrosive action of the sun’s rays. According to Thomas Gold, of Cornell University, the rocks on the moon’s surface were reduced to powder through constant attrition from meteorite particles. According to Gerard Kuiper, of the University of Chicago, the escape of gases from the moon’s magma may have given the satellite a light, porous consistency, like that of a pumice stone.
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| Frank Sinatra, 1964 |
In November of 1965, the journalistic fates brought Gay Talese and Frank Sinatra together in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas, Manhattan and Hollywood. Well, sort of. They were two guys from New Jersey, both of them Italian-American, given to continental tailoring, unstoppable ambition and unrelenting perfectionism in their chosen crafts.
In the latest autofictional instalment of his family saga, the French writer makes sense of his sibling’s violent homophobia and short
At 33, the French writer Édouard Louis has already seen all seven of his slim novels translated into English. In his breakout debut, The End of Eddy(2017), and again in Change (2024), he wrote about being the promising child of a poor family, the bullied gay son who became a bestselling author. Several of his other books have offered sympathetic sociological portraits of his parents: a father destroyed by physical labour, a victim of French healthcare and housing subsidy cutbacks, and a mother who, after raising numerous children in poverty, fled first Louis’s father and then, in Monique Escapes, published earlier this year, his abusive successor. Now, in Collapse, translated by novelist Tash Aw, Louis describes his eldest brother’s death, at 38, from complications relating to alcoholism.
From dynamite debuts to must-read memoirs and magical children’s fiction, here’s our selection of this year’s hottest holiday reads
A middle-aged writer returns to his college townto record the final interview with his 90-year-old intellectual mentor. But he’s broken his phone, and doesn’t seem able to confess that it’s not recording … this anxiety dream of a beginning leads us into a series of sharp insights into family, memory, inheritance and storytelling – all that it means to be human, and how smartphones are changing our sense of the world at every level.
Leading authors including Sarah Waters, William Dalrymple, Bernardine Evaristo and Anne Enright reveal their perfect holiday reading
Zadie Smith
Margaret Busby’s Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century is the record of one woman’s lifelong passion for the literature and life of Africa and its diaspora, wherever she finds it. A beautiful collection. The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while is Black Bag by Luke Kennard.
