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 History by Sunil Amrith

Ground Truth

A story of dirt, dollars, and death

The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson

Insisting on the Positive

A popular historian’s philosophical musings

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder

A Stranger in the Seven Hills

A refugee’s experience in the Eternal City

Roman Year: A Memoir by André Aciman

Mortal Coils

We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable

Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death by 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 Stevenson by Camille Peri

Schmaltz of Significance

How the first talkie treated the myth of the melting pot

Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer by Richard Bernstein

Life Story

A bioethicist and his creation

In Search of the Good: A Life in Bioethics By Daniel Callahan /The Roots of Bioethics: Health, Progress, Technology, Death By Daniel Callahan

Smarty Ants

Intelligence isn’t just for humans

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures By Virginia Morell

Found Fictions

A scholar broadens the canon

Truth’s Ragged Edge: The Rise of the American Novel By Philip F. Gura

Wing Men

Lepidopterists on the loose

Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World By William Leach

Totalitarianism in Practice

Terror as a way of life in East Germany, Poland, and Hungary

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 By Anne Applebaum

No Sentiment

Baudelaire’s shock of the new

La Folie Beaudelaire By Roberto Calasso

Fantastic Visions

Not crazy, just creative

Hallucinations By Oliver Sacks

Paint Fight

Two titans of art go head to head

The Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Artistic Duel that Defined the RenaissanceBy Jonathan Jones /Leonardo and the Last Supper By Ross King

Confounding Father

Thomas Jefferson and the economics of slavery

Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves By Henry Wiencek

Questions of Being

What if our minds are the ultimate reality?

Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story By Jim Holt

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