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
Admired and Abhorred
The German composer whose legacy continues to confound
By Steven G. Kellman Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of MusicAlex Ross
Beneath the Powdered Wig
Reinterpreting the life of our trendiest Founding Father
By Nancy Isenberg Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons From a Misunderstood Founder by Christian Parenti
Varieties of Experience
Culture rewires our brains and shapes how we think
By T. M. Luhrmann Wednesday, September 23, 2020
The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrichby Joseph Henrich
The Poet Who Painted
Max Jacob, who helped introduce Picasso to the French, was a talented artist in his own right
By Rosanna Warren Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Bugging Out
The buzzing, crawling creatures we would be lost without
By Natalie Angier Thursday, September 17, 2020
The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern Worldby Edward Melillo
Looking Back From the End of the World
What Thoreau can teach us about living life during—and after—the pandemic
By David Gessner Tuesday, June 2, 2020
The Patriot Slave
The dangerous myth that blacks in bondage chose not to be free in revolutionary America
By Farah Peterson Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Guardian of the Glaciers
As climate change threatens the future of the Himalayas, might the mountains’ salvation lie in endowing them with legal rights?
By Alex Basaraba Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Adrift in Sunlit Night
When searching St. Petersburg for the shadows of Dostoyevsky, Gogol, and Pushkin, the best strategy may simply be to get lost
By André Aciman Tuesday, June 2, 2020
