Editor’s Note: Keeping you in the know, Culture Queue is an ongoing series of recommendations for timely books to read, films to watch and podcasts and music to listen to. So you want to live like you ...

A half-man, half-bird beast playing a flute. A cat’s head popping out of a snail shell. A woman barfing up a tiny demon. These are just some of the otherworldly critters that scribes in the Middle ...