Portside

The Noise of Time, the new novel by Julian Barnes, is a fictionalized portrait of Dmitri Shostakovich, perhaps the most famous Russian composer of the Soviet era. Leslie Rieder, in this review, gives us a peek into the "utterly fascinating" tale Barnes has woven.

It begins with a short sequence in Sri Lanka: the civil war is over, the Liberation Tigers are burning their dead comrades’ bodies and swapping fatigues for civilian clothes to try and melt into the general population. In a refugee camp, a young woman is looking for unaccompanied children to be part of a hastily thrown together fake family, to help one such fighter get clear of the battle zone and into Europe.

The 2016 Google Food Trends report confirmed consumers are seeking out functional ingredients, global flavors and customizable snacks, and revealed a few surprise findings, too

Kunta Kinte and his family’s struggle to survive is rendered in a sleeker, visually gripping package without diluting the historical vestiges that endure in America.

The exiled Persian poet Majid Naficy draws on Christian parable (the Book of Matthew), suggesting that some of the irate voices on our streets are not enemies but prophets.

In David Looseley's take on the iconic French chanteuse Edith Piaf, her notoriously elusive life story is rendered as cultural history, drawing out what Piaf meant - and still means - to France and to her wider audience. Looseley notes that her musical persona was highly and brilliantly constructed. She projected a stage mask of suffering that was all the more affecting because the audience saw there was deprivation behind it. With Piaf, you underwent her.

This new book reconsiders the social and political impact of the energy crisis of the mid 1970s.

Kaili Blues, an eccentric, remarkably assured first feature by the young Chinese director Bi Gan, is both the most elusive and the most memorable new movie that I’ve seen in quite some time—“elusive” and “memorable” being central to Bi’s ambitions. - J. Hoberman

In the two years since Colorado legalised cannabis, chefs in the state have been finding new ways to make a meal of it.

Robert Schenkkan’s Tony award winning All the Way portrays Lyndon Baines Johnson in his finest hour, and its multi-media staging on Broadway was already cinematic in nature. HBO’s TV adaptation — directed by Jay Roach in collaboration with Schenkkan’s screenplay and airing Saturday — has upped the ante, giving us a leaner, less unwieldy and more intimate rendering.