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…