Island Royalty
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
By Madison Smartt Bell Monday, January 13, 2025
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut
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 Age by 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 Union by 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
The Bearable Lightness of Being
If you live long enough and contentedly enough in exile, your feelings of estrangement can evolve into a sense of living two lives at once
By Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Reducing Science and Religion
The world remains infinitely more complex than contemporary attempts to account for it
By Ingrid Rowland Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self By Marilynne Robinson
Maker of Magazines
Henry Luce had a restless mind and a preternatural feel for the national pulse
By Stanley Cloud Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century By Alan Brinkley
Growing Up in a Troubled Neighborhood
Kai Bird’s Middle East Memories and Meditations
By James Gibney Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis By Kai Bird
Afghanistan: ‘So This Is Paktya’
How ready are our allies to secure their own country?
By Neil Shea Tuesday, June 1, 2010
