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The week’s bestselling books, Sept. 15

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The week’s bestselling books, Sept. 15

Hardcover fiction

1. The Life Impossible by Matt Haig (Viking: $30) A retired math teacher comes to terms with her past after she’s gifted a run-down house on a Mediterranean island.

2. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner: $30) A seductive and cunning American woman infiltrates an anarchist collective in France.

3. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $29) A woman upends her domestic life in this irreverent and tender novel.

4. Colored Television by Danzy Senna (Riverhead Books: $29) A novelist in L.A. gets the opportunity to cash in on her biracial background in this sharply funny Hollywood takedown.

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5. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

6. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors (Ballantine Books: $30) Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister’s death.

7. Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday: $30) Private eye Jackson Brodie is back in the newest installment of the bestselling mystery series.

8. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random House: $30) A social satire on the wild legacy of trauma and inheritance.

9. We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, E. Madison Shimoda (Transl.) (Berkley: $25) A bestselling celebration of the healing power of cats.

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10. The Women by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Press: $30) An intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Hardcover nonfiction

1. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin Press: $32) The music producer’s guidance on how to be a creative person.

2. Dynamic Drive by Molly Fletcher (Hachette Go: $30) The keynote speaker and podcast host offers a guide to unlocking your true potential.

3. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin Press: $30) The actor-director’s memoir of growing up in Hollywood and Manhattan.

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4. The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (Crown: $35) An exploration of the pivotal five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the start of the Civil War.

5. The Wager by David Grann (Doubleday: $30) The story of the shipwreck of an 18th century British warship and a mutiny among the survivors.

6. The Art of Power by Nancy Pelosi (Simon & Schuster: $30) The most powerful woman in U.S. political history tells the story of how she became a master legislator.

7. The Reset Mindset by Penny Zenker (Amplify Publishing: $20) The productivity expert’s guide to achieving work, relationship and leadership goals.

8. Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson (Random House: $35) The first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court chronicles her life story.

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9. On the Edge by Nate Silver (Penguin Press: $35) A deep investigation of the hidden world of power brokers and risk takers.

10. Somehow by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books: $22) A joyful celebration of love from the bestselling author.

Paperback fiction

1. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial: $22)

2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19)

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3. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (Europa Editions: $17)

4. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (Penguin: $18)

5. Babel by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager: $20)

6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Atria: $17)

7. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Anchor: $18)

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8. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperOne: $18)

9. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central: $20)

10. Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz (NYRB Classics: $17)

Paperback nonfiction

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf: $35)

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2. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18)

3. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Metropolitan Books: $20)

4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17)

5. Going Infinite by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton & Co.: $20)

6. The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris (Penguin: $20)

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7. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton (Harper Perennial: $19)

8. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18)

9. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20)

10. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Vintage: $17)

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Movie Reviews

This ‘EPiC’ movie makes Elvis Presley vital once again – Review

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This ‘EPiC’ movie makes Elvis Presley vital once again – Review


You thought Baz Luhrmann was done with the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll after ‘Elvis’? The director truly makes Presley vital again with concert film ‘EPiC.’

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Think about how many people attended Taylor Swift’s worldwide Eras Tour. That’s a fairly huge number, right? Now think about how many people still remember seeing Elvis Presley live and in person. That’s likely not a very big number at all, and one steadily decreasing as time goes on.

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That’s why director Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” (★★★½ out of four; rated PG-13; in IMAX theaters now, nationwide Feb. 27) is so special and so, well, epic. This electrifying combo of documentary and concert film showcases the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll at his creative zenith during his 1970s Las Vegas residency and early ’70s tours, and more importantly showcases Presley in all of his jumpsuited splendor, as both cultural icon and cool guy. It’s an essential watch for every music fan, even if you’re not an Elvis junkie.

And a Presley-phile I am not. The most into Elvis I’ve ever been was as a kid in the 1980s somewhat obsessed with him not actually being dead, reading books about how he was living in Hawaii or something. But watching “EPiC” you get it. You get him. You get why teenage girls went berserk when he shook his hips and why people just went mad everywhere he went for decades. You also get, in his own words, a glimpse into who Presley truly was that no other documentary or film has ever captured the same way.

“EPiC” is light years better than Luhrmann’s recent “Elvis” biopic, and it’s a minor miracle that it exists in the first place. While working on his Austin Butler-starring movie, the Australian director unearthed 59 hours of lost footage in an underground Kansas salt mine, restored it and painstakingly matched it with audio, including new Presley interview material.

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“There’s been a lot written and a lot said but never from my side of the story,” Presley says as the film moves through his early controversies and Army service, and plants him in Vegas after an unfulfilling stint in Hollywood. The Elvis we see in Sin City is arguably unmatched, with all that musical maturity plus new inspiration after making bad movies.

He boasts an infectious demeanor and confidence backstage as he readies the Vegas show set list with his band. He goofs around with fellow musicians, quipping with them about the suggestive lyrics of The Beatles’ “Something” during rehearsal, yet also has fun at the live show with his audience, playfully plopping a blue bra on his head after some random lady throws it on stage.

The karate moves, unstoppable hips and physical swagger are there, yet so is some vulnerability and humility. And the musicianship is off the charts. Obviously, there are the Elvis greatest hits – “Suspicious Minds,” “Burning Love,” “Hound Dog,” etc. – but Presley slathers his own secret sauce on those by others. It’s enlightening to see him put the Elvis spin on The Beatles’ “Get Back,” Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” or Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” While the concert footage is jaw-dropping on the whole, the spirited renditions of “Tiger Man” and “Polk Salad Annie” are worth the price of admission alone.

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“EPiC” is one of the few times, like with a Marvel or “Star Wars” movie, where it’s worth the extra bucks for an IMAX ticket or getting into your local movie theater’s sonically spiffy Dolby Atmos cinema. Usually with rock docs and their ilk, watching via streaming or waiting to see at home is fine. This is different: On the biggest, best-sounding screen possible, the movie immerses you in Elvis’ audience for a monumental music experience. If your butt’s not shaking, either because of the energetic tunes or bass lines through the subwoofers, you’re not living right.

A movie like this is going to bring in older folks, be they Elvis nerds or those who have strong nostalgia for his peers and that time in music. However, it’s the kids who can’t get enough of the Taylors, Sabrinas and Chappells who should see “EPiC” just for the cultural history lesson. It’s a fascinating, rousing snapshot of a legend in his prime, coming alive again in a way that makes him just as vital now as he was then.

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How to watch the 2026 Actor Awards (and everything else you need to know)

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How to watch the 2026 Actor Awards (and everything else you need to know)

The Actor Awards are ready for their close-up.

The ceremony, previously known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards, will don its new name this weekend. Inspired by the show’s statuette, the new name is meant to provide “clearer recognition” for audiences tuning in, SAG-AFTRA said in November when revealing the rebrand. However, the show promises to still recognize the best film and television performances of the year.

The awards are voted on by members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, giving insight into how the actors’ branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might vote for the Oscars.

Here’s everything you need to know about the ceremony.

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When is the show?

The 32nd Actor Awards will take place Sunday at 5 p.m. Pacific at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall. The show is expected to run for about two hours.

How can I watch?

For the third year in a row, Netflix will stream the ceremony live. Previously, the awards show aired for 25 years on TNT and TBS, but struggled to reach cable viewers. The multi-year Netflix-SAG contract comes as the streamer continues to expand its presence in live events.

Who is hosting?

Kristen Bell will return to host the awards again this year. This is Bell’s third time emceeing the ceremony after stints in 2018 and 2025.

When Netflix revealed Bell’s return in early February, she told Tudum that there was something “so special and divine” about the opportunity. “I’m just very grateful that it’s me, because I like entertaining, and I like being goofy, and I like making people smile. So to be given this stage, it feels like an award in and of itself,” she said. She also teased that she may sing again.

What’s nominated?

“One Battle After Another” led the film slate with seven nominations, including cast in a motion picture and individual recognition for actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn.

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Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” trailed behind with five nominations. Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku and Miles Caton each earned individual nominations, as well as nods for the film’s cast and stunt ensembles.

On the television side, Apple TV’s “The Studio” received five nominations, including one for performance by an ensemble in a comedy series. Seth Rogen, Kathryn Hahn, Ike Barinholtz and the late Catherine O’Hara were also individually nominated.

HBO’s “The White Lotus” and Netflix’s “Adolescence” followed with four nominations each, including one for 16-year-old Owen Cooper.

Harrison Ford will receive the Life Achievement Award, considered SAG-AFTRA’s highest honor.

Here’s the full list of nominees.

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Movie Reviews

‘The Ballad of Judas Priest’ Review: Leather-Clad Heavy Metal Pioneers Are Nice Working-Class English Lads Who Enjoy a Good Cup of Tea

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‘The Ballad of Judas Priest’ Review: Leather-Clad Heavy Metal Pioneers Are Nice Working-Class English Lads Who Enjoy a Good Cup of Tea

The studded leather stage garb, the ear-splitting falsetto and thrashing guitars of a bunch of heavy metal gods suggest a stereotype bordering on satanic. Even the name given to the industrial birthplace of this lovingly assembled rock doc’s subjects, “The Black Country,” sounds like a demonic spawning ground. But one of the chief takeaways from fanboy co-directors Sam Dunn and Tom Morello’s entertaining legacy salute, The Ballad of Judas Priest, is how endearingly this canonical band comes across.

Sure, they helped define heavy metal culture by dressing like a biker gang, sparked a culture war trial over accusations of subliminal death messaging and superfan Jack Black describes their sound as “the song you want to fuckin’ play on the electric chair; it’s the song you want to play before you fuckin’ head off into oblivion.” But these guys seem approachable, unpretentious and refreshingly uninclined toward bad-ass macho-aggressive posturing. They are the kind of nice, self-deprecating working-class English lads you could take home to meet Mum and Dad. Maybe it’s the delightful Birmingham accents.

The Ballad of Judas Priest

The Bottom Line

The sweeter side of hardcore headbangers.

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Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Special Midnight)
With: Rob Halford, K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill, Scott Travis, Richie Faulkner, Tom Morello, Jack Black, Darryl McDaniels, Dave Grohl, Lzzy Hale, Billy Corgan, Scott Ian, Kirk Hammett, Ozzy Osbourne, Andy Sneap
Directors: Sam Dunn, Tom Morello

1 hour 38 minutes

That’s not to imply that Dunn and Morello’s film makes the pioneering metallurgists seem in any way inauthentic or soft. But when you partly frame a Judas Priest doc with longtime frontman Rob Halford, now a cheerful septuagenarian, strolling down to his local to order fish and chips with mushy peas and a pickled egg, you inevitably demystify your Metal Lords.

Then again, Judas Priest appear never to have cared much about cultivating an offstage mystique to match their hard-edged, high-energy performance style. Any band in their genre that would craft a metal power anthem out of Joan Baez’s introspective folk ballad “Diamonds and Rust” clearly isn’t just playing to expectations.

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The movie has surprising warmth and heart, notably so in its handling of Halford’s sexuality. The singer was never in the closet with his bandmates or management, but he was encouraged to hide that side of himself as their popularity grew in the 1970s. Halford acknowledges that metal was an alpha male-dominated sphere in which he himself believed there was no place for an openly gay man.

That created a struggle between success and fame on one side and loneliness and angst on the other, leading to a period of alcoholism, which he kicked with a 30-day rehab stint. But when Halford casually came out during a 1998 MTV interview, and the news traveled round the world in 24 hours, he was astonished at the outpouring of love and acceptance from the metal community.

The doc makes wry points about going back and looking for hidden queer meaning in the band’s lyrics, yielding not exactly subtle clues like Halford strutting around the stage singing “Grinder! Looking for meat!”

Earlier, they switched from sequins and satin into their defining leatherwear look, finding the initial pieces in a gay sex shop in London’s Soho. There’s humor in Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, a San Francisco native, recognizing the look from late 1970s Castro leather boys: “I was thinking, huh, maybe it’s different in Britain.” But Halford drolly specifies: “There was never any equation to S&M, because I’m the most vanilla guy in the gay world.”

The doc mixes present-day interviews with the band, archive material and input from contemporaries like Ozzy Osbourne and next-gen rockers Dave Grohl and Hammett. Black’s contributions are both reverential and light-hearted.

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But some of the most insightful and witty commentary comes from co-director and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Morello. He talks about starting a heavy metal appreciation club while he was at Harvard, which would meet every week to discuss Harvardian topics like “The social impact of the twin axe attack on ‘80s metal post Defenders of the Faith.”

In subsequent years, Morello started organizing similar gatherings of like-minded friends to discuss metal at the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles. One such meeting, extensively excerpted here, is a “Judas Priest Round Table,” at which Morello is joined by Run-DMC vocalist Darryl McDaniels, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, Scott Ian from Anthrax and Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale.

The group’s Priest love is contagious, and there’s a nice note of inclusivity in the fact that two Black musicians, Morello and McDaniels, were instrumental in getting Judas Priest into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame after the band had been passed over on two previous ballots.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter looks back on the “Satanic Panic” period, when mainstream America’s fear of the heavy metal subculture peaked. Concerned mothers formed the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) to scapegoat hard rock as a pollutant of their children’s minds, while Senate subcommittee hearings pushed for censorship.

The most significant offshoot of all this came in 1990, when a Nevada civil action funded by Christian conservatives went after Judas Priest for $6 million, alleging that subliminal messages in the band’s music prompted the suicide pact of two young males. This would seem ludicrous today if not for the far right’s habitual moral hysteria. But watching a courtroom full of people straining to hear vague signals like “Do it” in a Priest song raises eyebrows, especially when it’s determined that the subliminal words were never there. “The common-sense thing is, why would you tell your fans to fucking kill themselves?” observes Halford.

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While the band was cleared of any suspicion, the experience of their music being put on trial left behind a heavy cloud. They argue that, rather than feeding loneliness and despair, metal allowed misfits to find their communities. Hammett gets emotional talking about it, calling the music “medicine.”

This is more of a celebration than a warts-and-all study, with relatively little on the personal side. Conflicts are glossed over, line-up changes happen without drama and any life or relationships outside the band are mentioned only in passing. LGBTQ audiences might wish to know if Halford ever managed a clandestine relationship over the 25 years of fame during which he remained closeted, or indeed since. But Dunn and Morello make no apologies for sticking to the music and the rapport among the band members.

As with any group that’s been recording and performing in various configurations for more than half a century (Morello calls them “the Willie Nelson of heavy metal”), time takes its toll.

Longtime guitarist K.K. Downing’s departure in 2011 was a blow, though he’s vague about the reasons, beyond saying it started to feel more like hard work than joy. Even more saddening was the Parkinson’s disease diagnosis that struck Glenn Tipton, Downing’s other half in the twin axe “guitarmony” component so essential to the band’s dynamic. (The late Osbourne makes touching comments about the sense of solidarity he felt as a fellow Parkinson’s sufferer.)

The biggest change to the band came in 1992 when Halford decided to step away for a while to pursue solo projects. That lasted 11 years, but despite any rancor the break might have caused, when the time came for him to return, Tipton says, “He didn’t need to ask.” Nevertheless, that negotiation took place, in quintessentially British style, over a cup of tea.

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I confess that aside from a handful of Led Zeppelin bangers, I’ve never been much of a metal fan and before The Ballad of Judas Priest, I couldn’t have named even one of the band’s hits. But watching them perform at the 2022 Hall of Fame ceremony, with all four core members — Halford, Downing, Tipton and bassist Ian Hill — together again on stage, I found myself thinking “Priest! Fuck, yeah!” as my index and pinky fingers involuntarily formed devil horns.

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