New York Times - Top Stories

After years of friends asking for guided tours, I have perfected a deranged, 20-minute sprint through the Met galleries. But the newish display of Early Bronze Age figures from the islands off mainland Greece require more pause. You’ll never realize how “ancient” our modern aesthetics are — or how “modern” our ancestors were — until you gaze upon these statues.

I first encountered Eartha Kitt through a cartoon. She voiced the villainous (yet stylish) Yzma in “The Emperor’s New Groove.” Only later did I discover her career as a singer and actor through YouTube — and I find myself returning to an interview she did later in life about learning to fall in love, not with others but yourself.

In his autofiction, Édouard Louis offers a compelling blueprint for writers looking to alienate their friends and family. He attempts to outrun a working-class upbringing through academia, high society and relationships with older men. But “Change” is written almost like a confession to an abandoned friend, Elena, about escaping a past that never suited him.

The first chapters of this game unfold like a war novel, centering on child soldiers attempting to break the unending cycle of violence that surrounds them. But the story artfully turns into a grander narrative — one about generational trauma and mortality. I would argue it’s the best story that video games have told within the last decade.