Arts in the Afternoon

Some Indian states have banned a new biography of Mahatma Gandhi after U.S. and U.K. reviews carried the implication that the revered leader had a sexual relationship with German-Jewish bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach. Homosexuality was only decriminalized in India in 2009.

Hollywood loves writer's block more than it likes writers who write. Laura Miller thinks the recent flick Limitless is implausible. But does she have a solution? "Yes. It's called a mortgage."

Washington institution Politics and Prose has settled on a buyer. The owners of the bookstore insisted they would only sell to someone with whom they felt comfortable. That's turned out to be a Bethesda couple, both of whom worked for the Washington Post and various Democrats.

Organized religion will all but disappear from nine countries, mathematicians predict -- even in traditionally Catholic Ireland.

From Kander & Ebb to Kander & Pierce? John Kander, the co-creator of Chicago and Cabaret, takes on his first partner since the death of Fred Ebb seven years ago.

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011. Let's remember Taylor in her glorious youth, with her one Time cover, from August 22, 1949. The accompanying story discusses the business of art and the aging of the sex symbol -- prescient in this case.

If you haven't been following the case: a primer on the Google Books lawsuit.

"Escapism is overrated," Lisa Kennedy declares. Instead, we should seek out films that engage us in the real world around us -- such as the powerful French film Of Gods and Men, which just opened in DC.

A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts finds that the omnivore is an endangered species. These people -- who attend a wide variety of cultural events and attend them often -- are becoming an ever-smaller proportion of the population. Report author Mark J. Stern is optimistic about what the numbers mean, though. But is engaging with art electronically the same thing as engaging with the real thing?

"The Intellectual as Courtier": Paul Rahe looks at the history of thinkers seduced by tyrants -- including those who have defended the autocratic Qaddafi.

Al Qaeda launches its own Cosmo for the jihadist set, which offers advice on "marrying a mujahideen" and keeping your face looking young (by wearing a niqab, of course).

Jennifer Egan beats Jonathan Franzen to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The Los Angeles Times still leads its story with a picture of the over-hyped Franzen.