The coronavirus may have caused museums, theatres and concert halls around the world to close, but you can still get your culture fix from home. From a podcast on design to the new novel we’ve been waiting for, not to mention a handful of tunes to keep us going when the dreaded mid-afternoon slump hits, here are our cultural recommendations to enjoy from the comfort of your living room. And think of the positives: no snaking queues or sky-high ticket prices.

Podcasts
When the Financial Times launched its new culture podcast last August, one aim was to make sense of the way in which the changing political climate shapes art, literature, music and more. It will come as no surprise then that the latest episode discusses culture in the time of coronavirus. Hosted by Griselda Murray Brown in London and Lilah Raptopoulos in New York, Culture Call is a transatlantic conversation about the people and events shaking things up around the globe.

For the latest developments on everything from fashion and furniture to architecture and craft, listen in to Monocle on Design. Past guests have included British designer Ilse Crawford, Italian architect Renzo Piano and American writer Dana Thomas.

Hosted by our co-founder Matt Gibberd, The Modern House Podcast invites leading lights from the worlds of design, architecture and other creative industries to talk about their top three favourite living spaces. In each episode we explore the ability of a well-designed space to enhance your life – so listen in, then start rejigging.

Books
Not only did the final instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning trilogy land exactly when we needed it, at 900 pages, it’s also sure to keep us going for a while. The Mirror and the Light plunges us back into Tudor England – complete with 16th-century smells, sights, and sounds – as it traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. The most eagerly awaited release of the year, it doesn’t disappoint.

We may be stuck at home, but as many of us have already discovered, there are plenty of ways to keep in touch with family and friends. To add some other voices to the mix, though, look no further than Zadie Smith’s Grand Union. The author’s first collection of short stories is endlessly rich and varied.

Self-isolating needn’t mean we have to say goodbye to nature, whether we find it on our doorstep or in a book. Through rigorous research and graceful prose, Lucy Jones’s Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild pinpoints the psychological value of the natural world and why it’s crucial we work on our increasingly fragile relationship with the earth.

Film
Cinemas are closed, but Curzon Home Cinema provides a home-based alternative to the big screen. Top of our to-watch list is French screenwriter and film director Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a poignant and erotically charged historical romance about the relationship between a painter and her subject.

Architecture steals the show in Korean-American film-maker Kogonada’s debut feature, Columbus, available on Amazon Prime. The son of a famous South Korean architect and a high school graduate taking care of her recovering drug addict mum find solace in the modernist buildings of a Midwestern town.

New York-based independent film-maker Gary Hustwit is screening a free documentary every week during the Covid-19 crisis. His work includes Helvetica, an ode to typography and graphic design, and Rams, a feature film about German industrial designer Dieter Rams.

TV
Netflix’s documentary series Abstract: The Art of Design lifts the lid on what makes the minds of today’s most talented creators tick. Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and American-Israeli designer Neri Oxman are just two of the designers to feature in the second series. Tune in to discover how our physical surroundings come into being.

Available on BBC iPlayer, Bauhaus 100 tells the story of German architect Walter Gropius and the teachers and students with whom he formed the Bauhaus, a radical art school that went on to transform our built environment. Operating between 1919 and 1933, the Bauhaus was a reaction against the destruction wreaked by technology during Word War I and a bid to reimagine a new system of living in the modern world.

Music
American actor, comedian and musician Donald Glover has you covered when it comes to surround sounds. The ambitious new album from his alter ego, Childish Gambino, 3.15.20 is packed with genre-bending beats that weave in hip-hop, funk and electronica. A decade in the making and definitely worth the wait.

The husky voice and folksy storytelling of the recently-passed American country music star Kenny Rogers are nothing if not soothing in this unsettling time.

The second single from the Pet Shop Boys’ fifth album, Behaviour, Being Boring is the perfect pop song to listen to while stuck at home. A ballad about the experience of living that touches on friendship, ambition, hope and loss.  

Art
As museums and galleries around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future, arts institutions are moving their work online. Enjoy a virtual tour of The British Museum in London then zip across to Rome for uninterrupted views of the elaborate murals and tapestries of the Vatican Museums. The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is also available in cyberspace, as is the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. This is armchair culture tourism like we’ve never seen it before. Want more? Launching in April is Vortic, an extended reality platform connecting commercial galleries with collectors.