From an early modernist masterpiece to a remote, rosy-hued dream home
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Brassaï's striking photos shaped our view of the city forever
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The sequel is 2026's most hyped film – but the publicity doesn't bode well
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Connie Converse was barely known in her time – but is now regarded as a pioneer
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Dr Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinatory effects of LSD in April 1943
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Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, a painter whose work dealt with racism and upheaval in an America riven by inequalities, died at her home in Los Angeles on Friday. She was 46. Jeffrey Deitch gallery, which will open a Dupuy-Spencer show in LA next week, announced her death on Saturday morning, but did not state a cause.
Dupuy-Spencer moved freely between unflinching images of protests and tender pictures of intimacy. She was just as likely to paint a fallen Confederate monument as she was to capture sexually frank images of lovers in bed. All of the subjects she painted, she said, were “things that are meaningful to me.”
In many cases, her subject matter was often explicitly political and highly legible. In 2021, she was profiled by multiple magazines for painting the January 6 insurrection. The resultant work, titled Father, Don’t You See That I Am Burning (2021), is a feverish pile-up of figures toting guns and American flags before the Capitol building. Sigmund Freud appears amid the crowd; the painting’s title refers to a line from Interpretation of Dreams.
Of that painting, Dupuy-Spencer said, she was thinking of how “disturbances that happen outside the sleeper are incorporated into the dream,” as she told Artnet News. “In case of emergency, those are pulled in, and the dream wakes the dreamer up.” Moreover, she said, “I was thinking of the dream as a critique of the American Dream.”
That painting, like many of the others she did, collapsed pictorial space, creating a flattening effect that diverges from life itself. “Often, I’m trying to paint something realistically and then I fuck it up and attempt to make that into a good painting,” she told Bomb in 2018.
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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest headlines from last week.
The Millions Has Released Their Spring 2026 Book Preview
The Millions released their Great Spring 2026 Book review—one of their biannual Great Book Previews—just this past Friday. Right off the bat, it gets into some of our most anticipated. There’s One Leg on Earth by ‘Pemi Aguda, London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe, Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez, and My Dear You by Rachel Khong, to name a few.
A List of Black Book Festivals Throughout the Country
Sisters from AARP has published a list of Black Book Festivals happening throughout the country this year, and all I have to say is nobody told me nothing! I’m kidding, but only a little. It’s nice to be able to look at everything in one place. The dates start as early as April 25 and run until the fall, with locations in the South, the West, the Midwest, and the Northeast.
The Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far
The best historical fiction books of the century so far take us from ancient Greece to the Joseon dynasty in Korea to the Six-Day War in Palestine to 1980s NASA astronaut training. Historical fiction continues to be biased towards recent events, but we are getting to see more of history around the world than we did just a few decades ago.
Mega Bestselling Thriller Writer Freida McFadden’s Identity Revealed
This is kind of fun. I love a good mystery surrounding an author’s true identity (remember the whole thing surrounding Argylle? It was a cute little time), and McFadden is the latest author to have their true self shrouded in mystery. I’ve yet to read any of her books, which have been all up and down recent bestseller lists, but I have to say her Secret Author Identity game is immaculate. Apparently, Sara Cohen (her real name) is a doctor who specializes in brain disorders. To maintain privacy, she’s used not just the McFadden pseudonym, but a wig and glasses. It’s so extra, I love it. A++ disguise.
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The 13th edition of Expo Chicago is currently buzzing as huge squads of museum directors, curators, and collectors have descended on the Windy City this week for the fair. This edition is smaller than years past, with a pared-down group of 130 exhibitors—coming from cities as far-flung as New York, Tokyo, Memphis, London, Buenos Aires, and Lagos—spread across the Navy Pier.
“The scaling down in size allowed for a raising of the bar in terms of the overall quality of presentations. It’s a more manageable size,” John Corbett, co-principal at Chicago gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey, told ARTnews on the fair’s first day.
There’s much to see at the fair, but here are five must-see presentations to catch before the fair closes on Sunday.
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Every month, there’s a flood of new books coming out clamoring for a spot on your TBR. But with so many competing for your attention, it’s easy to lose track of the ones you’re most excited about. And often, you just end up hearing about the titles with the biggest marketing budgets.
So, how do you keep up with new releases without it spiraling into a part-time job of catalog reviews and spreadsheets? That’s where the New Release Index comes in.
The New Release Index is a database of upcoming books, curated by Book Riot. It’s organized by release date, and you can filter by genre. Above is a sneak peek of some of the new releases out in April.
Here’s how it works: scroll through the covers until you find one that catches your eye. Click on the cover for the book description, and then save the titles you’re interested in on your Watchlist.
The best part is that the New Release Index is included in your All Access subscription. For $6 a month, you not only get the New Release Index, but also all of Book Riot’s paid content.
Sign up for All Access to get started, or you can check out our guide to the New Release Index for more information.
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In Case You Missed Yesterday’s Most Popular Book Deals
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