Shanghai straddles the past and the future, a dizzying prism of many histories and cultures. The poet Sally Wen Mao shares books that illuminate this cosmopolitan city.

It’s tough to get work in film and television these days. So one unemployed writer decided to study up on “The Price Is Right.”

© Alex Welsh for The New York Times

An attack on culture divides the very people who should be in direct dialogue, reading each other’s books. It cannot be that the solution to conflict is to read less, and not more.