On Reading a Five-Volume Biography of Prince Albert
/Maligned as nothing but handsome breeding stock, this German import did more to redefine the role of the monarchy than any subsequent royal, consort or king.
Read MoreSentimental Education
/Though most people don't understand musical notation or the theory underlying it, nearly all classical music writing relies on it. Today, the initiate has a better option: YouTube.
Read MoreGraphomaniacal
/"I've never been terribly attracted to pretty things in general. Pretty and bland seem synonymous to me, and there's certainly a lot of that in the art world already." -- a conversation with Bill Amundson
Read MoreGeneralissimo
/James Madison was more cautious and purposeful than the temperamental Hamilton or the effusive Jefferson. Indeed, to paraphrase Brookhiser, Hamilton was a rocket, Jefferson was a kite, Madison was a ballast.
Read MoreBetween the Devil and Aunt Edna
/His own life was the great tragedy he was never quite able to write. Michael Adams assesses the career of playwright Terence Rattigan.
Read MoreThe Laureate of Everyday
/As a young man, the Roman poet Horace ran from battle; when he was older, he turned down a job offer from Augustus Caesar. He refused to write epics, but he gave readers something even better, and it insured his immortality.
Read More“Writing Against Time”: An Interview With Benjamin Markovits
/"I made no particular effort to keep the portrait of Byron consistent from one novel to another. I wanted to show him in different lights, from different angles." Joshua Lustig interviews the author of the esteemed Byron Trilogy.
Read MoreControlled Chaos
/A Conversation with Cover Artist Pattie Lee Becker
Read MoreSurvivor Testimony: The Case for Apocalypto
/Mel Gibson has made far more headlines for boorish public behavior than for the movies he's directed, and yet one of those movies -- the ambitious, problematic "Apocalypto," seeks to transcend easy classification.
Read MoreLee Miller’s Eye
/Lee Miller, known for a hundred years as Man Ray's muse, comes into her own in a new book and exhibit. What's she like?
Read MoreThe Personal Was Always the Political
/Vivian Gornick's biography of Emma Goldman focuses more on the famous anarchist's love life than her political ideologies--but might those tumultuous relationships offer new insights into her beliefs?
Read MoreThere Will Be No More Great Ideas
/Robert Musil's magnum opus The Man Without Qualities was groundbreaking not because it's unfinished but because it's unfinishable. A new study attempts to take scope of its deep and mesmerizing pointlessness.
Read MoreThe Restful “I”: Rumi, Psychology, and the Discovery of Love
/The 12th-century Sufi poet Rumi is said to have re-created himself as an avatar of love. Chase Nordengren explores the stations on the life cycle that lead to such a radical rebirth.
Read MoreReal Illusions
/“You’ve got to learn the language of art to be able to appreciate it. And then, where you go with it, what you see with it, is only limited to your own imagination.”-- A conversation with cover artist John Bonath
Read MoreThe Hero of His Own Life?
/It's easy to love the Dickens we think we know--the man whose warm compassion and boundless imagination gave us Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Magwitch, Oliver Twist and Nancy. But what about the man behind the novels? Claire Tomalin's magisterial new biography brings us up close and personal.
Read MoreSet Sail, Come Home
/On the surface, the new RPG Bastion is a fairly straightforward hack-and-slash video game---but a complex narrative back-story reveals some hidden depths.
Read MoreLast Month
/Alan Hollinghurst's latest; an essay from Douglass Shand-Tucci; Sargent's El Jaleo reconsidered; António Lobo Antunes’ thrillers; Ben Lerner’s latest; vintage scents; Akilah Oliver’s final volume and far more....
Read MoreThe OLM Quiz: From All Saints Day to Thanksgiving
/This month's quiz has scoured the archives for November-based literary trivia. Do your worst!
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy - Letter from Boston: Toward a New History
/Boston, so often reproved for living in its memories, may well be poised to lead the future, not in spite of its history but because of it.
Read MoreOn the Scent: A Certain Vintage
/Our resident nose racks up facts on the tinctures of yesteryear, many of which still prove possible to capture and some of which are well worth sniffing out
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