Arts & Life

An art world record was set Wednesday night at Christie's auction house in New York, when a painting credited to Leonardo Da Vinci sold for $450 million to an unknown bidder. Art critic Blake Gopnik says that number is in some ways the least interesting part of this story.

"I don't know any woman who has a simple relationship with their mother or with their daughter," Gerwig says. Her new film tells the story of a teenager preparing to leave home for the first time.

The sale at Christie's of Salvator Mundi, which dates from around 1500, easily tops previous records set in 2015 for a Picasso sold at auction and a Willem de Kooning sold privately.

We asked the artist behind the popular webcomic Poorly Drawn Lines to share the thinking behind a few of the hilariously deadpan comics from his latest book.

Richard Baker is an established voice in military science fiction; his latest, Valiant Dust, kicks off a new space adventure series. But it's hampered by shallow characters and cultural blindness.

For Ward, who won the fiction prize for Sing, Unburied, Sing, it was her second National Book Award. For Bidart, whose poetry collection spanned 51 years, it was akin to a lifetime achievement honor.

Even if you're staying sober, sometimes you might just miss the taste of a really good beer. But the market for high-end booze-free brews has gone largely untapped. That's starting to change.

Weir returns to a successful formula in his new book — action and adventure in space, with a snarky voice and plenty of reader-friendly science — though this time the story moves to a moon colony.