Remembering Bob Silvers
The legendary New York Review of Books editor knew everybody, had read everything, and oversaw every stage of what he published
By Garry Wills Monday, June 5, 2017
“I Will Die a Russian”
A marriage of convenience that yielded an intelligence bonanza
By Sara Mansfield Taber Monday, June 5, 2017
Spies in the Family by Eva Dillon
Goodbye to Westbrook Acres
As a writer walks and muses, the world’s sorrows intrude upon the peaceful streets he will be leaving
By Andrew Hudgins Monday, June 5, 2017
Alphaland
When a New York neighborhood secedes, a veteran rockstar finds himself on the outs
By Ralph Lombreglia Monday, June 5, 2017
The Writer in the Family
The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero
By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025
The Weight of a Stone
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology
By Megan Craig Thursday, January 2, 2025
Verde
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew
By Jesse Lee Kercheval Thursday, December 12, 2024
Aging Out
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night
By Anne Matthews Thursday, December 5, 2024
Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Ageby James Chappel
Under a Spell Everlasting
Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war
By Samantha Rose Hill Monday, December 2, 2024
Divided Providence
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War
By Robert Wilson Monday, December 2, 2024
Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Unionby Richard Carwardine
The Fair Fields 
Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil
By Rosanna Warren Monday, December 2, 2024
Ideology as Anatomy
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives
By Sierra Bellows Monday, December 2, 2024
Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Partsby Helen King
