Philip Martin

Stephen King’s first novel remains one of his strangest and most formally adventurous — a fractured story of humiliation, catastrophe and the explanations people invent once it is too late to change anything.

"Yikes."

Years ago, when I flew more often, a congressman would occasionally turn up on the same flight to Washington. Leaving the hometown airport, he sat in coach with the rest of us. On the connecting flight, I would walk past him settled into first class. This happened more than once, and always made me smile. There's no reason to begrudge him a comfortable seat, though it was amusing to think he felt obliged to begin the journey as another working stiff. Perhaps upgrades or seat availability explained it. Otherwise, the arrangement suggested he understood where he needed to be seen among the people.

Al Topich, known to film audiences as Xander Topich, returns to directing with ‘Stalling’ and finds the rewards in making movies together.

Ordered destroyed, Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ survived to haunt cinema — and returns to the big screen at AMFA.

Sean Harrison was a musician before he became a journalist, and he kept writing songs while earning his living with other kinds of sentences. The Fayetteville singer-songwriter joins his friend and occasional songwriting collaborator Philip Martin for this episode of “Sessions.”

Let us read it for you. Listen now. Your browser does not support the audio element. Stay in one job long enough and you acquire tenure.

Käthe Kollwitz’s memorial to Karl Liebknecht honors a grief that political disagreement cannot diminish.

New books by Jay McInerney, Mary Jo Salter and Jordan Tannahill consider the consolations of growing older, the persistence of memory and the things we are reluctant to surrender.

I want to tell you about Ann Hornaday, who died Oct. 18 at 66.