Required Reading: Five Books That Shaped Ethel Cain’s Tour

Hayden Anhedönia, the singer-songwriter known as Ethel Cain, draws from an encyclopedic trove of cultural references for her work, stirring them into a Southern Gothic brew that feels uniquely her…

Required Reading: 7 Books and Authors That Changed Elizabeth McGovern’s Life—and Informed Her New Play, ‘Ava: The Secret Conversations’

“It just blew my mind, because it takes a person all the way from high school age to maturity. That really fascinates me as an actor, the idea that every…

Beyond Blume: Mara Brock Akil Shares 9 More Books That Informed Her Netflix Hit ‘Forever’

With TV hits like Girlfriends, The Game, and Being Mary Jane under her belt, Mara Brock Akil is a bona fide legend—and her latest project, Netflix’s swoon-worthy Forever, is the…

Writer-Director Durga Chew-Bose on Françoise Sagan’s ‘Bonjour Tristesse’—And 7 More Books That Inspired Her First Film

Cécile (Lily McInerny) reading her novel, Claudia, Claudia—an oblique reference to one of Chew-Bose’s favorite actresses, Monica Vitti. (Vitti played a character named Claudia in Michelangelo Antonioni’s evocative, Mediterranean-set L’Avventura.)…

From André Leon Talley to Zora Neale Hurston: A “Superfine” Reading List

In recent years, the theme of the Costume Institute’s big spring exhibition—and, in turn, the Met Gala—has often had an establishing textual reference, whether Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp or…