An Epic in Flux

Gilgamesh, the world’s first great literary work, is still being pieced together

The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh By David Damrosch

Design Problem

Does the internal physiology of animals imply a harmony of structure and function?

The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself By J. Scott Turner

The Historical Present

Robert Fagle’s bold solutions to the problem of Virgil

The Aeneid By Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles

Pleasure out of Desperation

Thomas Eakins, yearning for the ideal in a materialistic age

Portrait: The Life of Thomas Eakins By William S. McFeely

Organized Violence

In the last century, where did warfare end and genocide begin?

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West By Niall Ferguson

Poised Between the Ancient and the New

Isaac B. Singer: A Life By Florence Noiville

What if Nature Had Been Thrifty?

The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny By Ivar Ekeland

Birthday Suit

Skin: A Natural History By Nina G. Jablonski

Environmentalism for Outsiders

The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism By Aaron Sachs

Peaceable Kingdom

The Medici Giraffe and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power By Marina Belozerskaya

Who Would I Be Off My Meds

Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering?

Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistanceby Laura Delano

Who’s to Say?
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A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity

Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesusby Elaine Pagels

Chapters and Verse

Looking for the poet between the lines

Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetryby Adam Plunkett

Once More, Without Feeling

Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth?

Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritanceby Joe Dunthorne

Electrons That Bind

The molecule at the center of everything

Carbon: The Book of Lifeby Paul Hawken

Food for Thought

A pragmatic approach to one of humanity’s gravest threats

How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Foodby Vaclav Smil

Splitting Our Sides

A new biography of a comedy pioneer

Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Liveby Susan Morrison

In the Lions’ Studio

A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equationby Kenneth Turan

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apartby Nicholas Carr

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Unionby Richard Carwardine

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