Arts and Culture

Our editor-at-large's rundown of the pick of the week’s streaming, cinema, theatre and books

Many languages, including English, contain loan words ‘borrowed’ from other languages. But there is one notable exception – Icelandic

An adventurous romantic life lent almost a Zelig-like quality to the writer, constantly drawing her towards the centre of events

The inheritance tax debate is a little more nuanced than you will read on social media

The German artist returns with a playful book that shakes things up by bringing the surreal into the everyday

That we have seemingly managed to beat Elon Musk should be cause for celebration. Why, then, do I have this uneasiness about it?

An edge-of-the-pulpit papal thriller from the screenwriter of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light offers lessons in weakness, venality and doubt

How a habitual jailbird became one of Germany’s most famous authors by writing about a Wild West he’d never visited

The flawed star who floored a nation

Once a painter of charming small-town scenes, Antonio Calderara radically departed into the abstract. But was this shift as sudden, or surprising, as it seems?

For Indochine and The Cure, two of the greatest bands associated with France and Britain respectively, pessimism is their signature sound

Adapted from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork and produced by Denzel Washington, this feature is a family affair

This ethnic group of Afro-Indian origin have their own language, derived from French after their ancestors were brought to the islands as slaves

Her young daughters grieving before a grave she didn’t occupy was not even the worst tribulation to afflict the life of the Hungarian

From Sally Bowles to George Smiley by way of Kreuzberg and Alexanderplatz, the best books about Berlin

New Yorkers get to be abstemious, at least most of the time, because their weather allows it. Not so here

How the band may have played a bigger part in the country’s history than is yet appreciated

Restaurants like this tapas bar rarely exist in Britain. People are too reluctant to live

Sent from Berlin to London to escape the Nazis, artist Frank Auerbach – who died earlier this month – painted his new surroundings over and over again

The Jewish German writer antagonised Hitler’s regime with every action she took. To me, she was also family

At 86, with a number of all-time classics to his name, Ridley Scott has earned the right to have some fun

Ireland’s pubs are struggling but a music festival brings people to the streets

Americans aren’t my people, not for one great reason but for a thousand small ones

The troubled journalist forged her place in and around a world to which she never quite belonged

A new museum in Giza reminds us of Europe’s deepest origins

Discussions on whether there are any famous Belgians often throw up the same names – but very rarely is Beethoven one of those suggested

The social club in heart of London’s Little Italy is a cornerstone of working-class Italian culture but is faced with the threat of closure

For well over a decade, Beaujolais Nouveau day was a British obsession. How did an unsophisticated bottle of plonk become big business?

There’s pain and glory in The Last Dream – a patchy collection from the Spanish film-maker – but its highlight is all about his mother

The wisecracking writer was traumatised and transformed by her 1937 visit to Spain to support the Republican cause in the civil war

In the Italian version of Gold Digger, Monica Guerritore rewrites the rules for women