Elizabeth Rosner’s “Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening” looks at how and what humans and other animals can convey without speaking words.

The Chronicle movie critic also answers questions about favorite election films and whether Walter Matthau would have made it in 2024.

Despite being born 42 years apart, “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk and pioneering sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury share an unusual literary love: the fix-up novel. Bradbury’s seminal contributions to ...

“Skin of Glass” on PBS delves into the history and current state of Roger Zmekhol’s famed São Paulo tower, revealing personal and architectural stories.

In the wistful and vivid “Roman Year: A Memoir,” writer André Aciman relives the isolation that honed his gifts of observation.

Disaster, in forms both natural and manmade, haunts the fiction of Anita Felicelli. Wildfire smoke chokes out moonlight. A tsunami threatens the drought-scorched West Coast. Nuclear fallout degrades ...

New wave titans B-52s and garage rock pioneers the Mummies were among the highlights for the latest installment of DIY Oakland music festival. Festival attendees enjoy a performance by Egyptian Lover ...

Elizabeth Stix sits in her home office in Berkeley, where we’re speaking via Zoom. She holds up a bright yellow book. Its cover features a school portrait-style shot of a cross-eyed boxer with a mean ...

Review: In ‘Touch,’ a widower searches for lost love from his past The Icelandic film harks back to 1960s London, when a young man fell in love with a Japanese girl — and lost her.

How John Williams wrote the soundtrack of my life A new Disney+ documentary reveals the depth of influence of Steven Spielberg’s and George Lucas’ favorite composer on popular culture.

For Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle, the Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson movie brings back a memory of someone from long ago.

One second-act number, “You've Been Playing With Fire,” almost seems to metatheatrically comment on all this. We’re inside Daniel’s head now, at a moment of panic, and a bunch of Mrs. Doubtfire clones ...