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 Apologist
The celebrated Austrian writer Peter Handke, who won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature, appeared at the funeral of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Should we forgive him?
By Michael McDonald Thursday, March 1, 2007
The Cook’s Son
The death of a young man, long ago in Africa, continues to raise questions with no answers
By Frank Huyler Thursday, March 1, 2007
One Day in the Life of Melvin Jules Bukiet
A Manhattan writer runs afoul of the local penal system and lives to tell the tale
By Melvin Jules Bukiet Thursday, March 1, 2007
Globalization and Its Discontents
The directors of movies Babel and Caché tell complex stories of families caught in ever-expanding worlds
By Richard Locke Thursday, March 1, 2007
