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
An Assassin’s Tale
In the footsteps of the murderer of Martin Luther King Jr.
By Sridhar Pappu Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin By Hampton Sides
Do Head Meds Make Us Sicker?
The argument that says they do has problems of its own
By Gary Greenberg Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America By Robert Whitaker
Mayhem Across the Border
A Mexican city where homicide is the new normal
By Paul Salopek Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields By Charles Bowden
Lost Classics
An address delivered in 2009 to graduates in classics at UC Berkeley
By Daniel Mendelsohn Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A Joyless Noise
Two pleas for making life a whole lot quieter
By Jon Zobenica Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About NoiseBy Garret Keizer /Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence By George Michelsen
Solitude and Leadership
If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts
By William Deresiewicz Monday, March 1, 2010
Reading in a Digital Age
Notes on why the novel and the Internet are opposites, and why the latter both undermines the former and makes it more necessary
By Sven Birkerts Monday, March 1, 2010
Nabokov Lives On
Why his unfinished novel, Laura, deserved to be published; what’s left in the voluminous archive of his unpublished work
By Brian Boyd Monday, March 1, 2010
