Crime isn’t what it was in the 1980s. But a new podcast about the Bernhard Goetz subway shootings suggests that even then, the fear of crime outpaced reality.
In this week’s newsletter: How did the most talked-up teenager of a generation become maybe the greatest of all time? Find out in A King’s Reign. Plus: five of the best podcasts with great hosts
Claire Dederer’s fascinating book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, which explores whether it’s possible to love the art yet hate the artist, devotes a chapter called ‘The Stain’ to Michael Jackson. For Dederer, the stain may begin with a single act, but radiates outward, indelible and permanent. Information becomes a time traveller, “because our idea of that person is affected by our new knowledge”.