John Powers

John Powers says Mick Herron's novels "boast an irresistible premise. They follow the adventures of a group of maladroit MI5 agents who've somehow blown it — you know, left a disk marked "Top Secret" on the Underground, or slept with an ambassador's spouse."

The travails of immigrant life take a quietly beguiling form in Minari, a semi-autobiographical film by Lee Isaac Chung that brims with humor, humanity and hope.

The emergence of AIDS provides the impetus for It's a Sin, a hit British series about five young people who share a London apartment over the years from 1981 to '91.