With its echoes of Miranda July’s All Fours, this tragicomic tale of an American woman’s illicit romance is also a gripping murder mysteryThe plot of A Little Bit Bad sounds like the setup for a joke: “Like, this white lady lusting after her hot Chicano roofer?” Perdita Jungfrau, the narrator, is describing…

The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee; A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper; Murder on the Red River by Marcie R Rendon; The Devoted by Catherine Cho; The Repentants by Kate FosterThe Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill, £16.99)In the eponymous Mumbai apartment block, the immensely rich and those who serve them exist side…

This study of the struggle for rights includes incredible personal stories that we should all be more familiar withYou could take two outwardly contradictory lessons from the historian David Turner’s new book on disability in the UK. First, that alarmingly little has changed for disabled people since the beginning…

Gerhardt/WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Manze(Hyperion)Alban Gerhardt eschews the romantic, heart-on-sleeve interpretations of these famous concertos, and finds nobility and poetry even in the most turbulent musicAlban Gerhardt adopts a back-to-basics approach in these thoughtful readings of cello concertos by Elgar and…

(ECM)Lovano and his spirited quartet make his instrument glow in all its pliable eloquence, with rattling originals amid the Charlie Haden and Wayne Shorter coversThe saxophone’s 19th-century inventor, the Belgian Adolphe Sax, imagined hybrid horns that could combine the speed and fluency of woodwinds with the…

(Ibeyi)Newly independent and proudly self-sufficient, Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz mix ancient lore with heavy bass, and harmonies with distortion, to incantatory effectHaving ceded creative control to numerous collaborators on 2022’s Spell 31 (veteran pop songwriter Eg White; rappers Pa Salieu and Berwyn), Naomi and…

The Chinese-Danish artist wrote nine 10ths of Larsson’s breakout album then got a Grammy nod. It’s a fine springboard for her own revelatory popFrom Aarhus, DenmarkRecommended if you like Caroline Polachek, Zara Larsson, GrimesUp next Debut project coming later this yearYou could hardly make a better professional…

Who is the Ideal Candidate for a Magic Facelift? | #magic Facelift in Islamabad

Andy Serkis has picked the perfect actor for the next iteration of the Lord of the Rings franchise. But if Tolkien didn’t linger over this subplot, should we?Let’s be honest: Anya Taylor-Joy would make a great elf. If any human being could flit from tree to tree as if woven from gossamer and starlight, or appear…

Over 40 years, Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato – or ‘rediscovered cinema’ – has evolved into an influential international gatheringBologna will be transformed into an open-air museum of cinema on Saturday as a nine-day festival dedicated to restored, rediscovered and overlooked films – some dating back more…