Spend Some Time With: Indonesian Assassins, Sudan’s songs, Victor Hugo

Readers, a new weekly segment where I'll recommend three good things to watch, listen to, and read. Usually it'll be longer stuff that merits tuning out the kaleidoscopic screaming mania of daily news. Let me know what you think here. -Alex

Watch:Act of Killing – A gripping documentary about the history of Indonesia's right-wing dictatorship, in which former government assassins stage plays to re-enact and repent for their killings. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2014.

Listen: Afropop Worldwide: Music and History in the Two Sudans – A podcast on how the legacies of slavery, colonialism, independence, and war have left their mark on the enchanting popular music of Sudan and South Sudan. Next level.

Read: Notre Dame of Paris Book V Section II – Sandwiched into the novel, a wonderful essay called "This Will Destroy That" in which Victor Hugo identifies the one human invention that destroyed architecture's historic role as "the great book of the human race." Hint: it wasn't fire.