A Poet in Purgatory

An inside look at a literary marriage that ended in disaster

The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956–1963 edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil

The Runaway Question

How people fleeing bondage helped transform the nation

The War Before the War by Andrew Delbanco

The House for the Soul

Investigating the rhythmic beat at the center of our lives

Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart by Mimi Swartz

Lives of the Artists

The vistas and losses of two great English painters

Elegy Landscapes: Constable and Turner and the Intimate Sublime by Stanley Plumly

A Proximity to Greatness

How a reclusive writer’s work came to be published

After Emily: Two Remarkable Women, and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet by Julie Dobrow

Too Much Information

When flawed algorithms meet naïve expectations

The Efficiency Paradox by Edward Tenner

Robben Island Days

A South African leader’s jailhouse correspondence during apartheid

The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela edited by Sahm Venter

Monstrous Achievement

Two hundred years on, a writer’s cautionary tale still captivates

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson

A Life’s Work Gone to Seed

The lost cultivations of an often overlooked colonial scientist

American Eden by Victoria Johnson

Everything Was Radiant

A Soviet reactor’s meltdown and its far-reaching consequences

Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy

Heart of Semi-Darkness

A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors

Masters of Horror and Magic

The German folklorists who helped build a nation

For Want of Touch

The astonishing breadth of our passions

Imperiled Planet

The ecological havoc we’ve wrought

The Burning Earth: A Historyby Sunil Amrith

Ground Truth

A story of dirt, dollars, and death

The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippiby Wright Thompson

Insisting on the Positive

A popular historian’s philosophical musings

On Freedomby Timothy Snyder

A Stranger in the Seven Hills

A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City

Roman Year: A Memoirby André Aciman

Mortal Coils

We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable

Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Deathby Susana Monsó

Silent Partner

The union that may have made possible a writer’s late flourishing

A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevensonby Camille Peri

Schmaltz of Significance

How the first talkie treated the myth of the melting pot

Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singerby Richard Bernstein

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