Gallantry Once a Week: Boswell's Grand Tour
/Before he was a master biographer, James Boswell was a best-selling author of travel writing. Luciano Mangiafico explores his scandalous life in Italy.
Read MoreBook Review: Reading The Tale of Genji
/The Tale of Genji has been enthralling readers for a thousand years; a grand new book collects some of the varied critical responses it's sparked over the centuries
Read MoreMe Am Your Smallest Fan
/Long, long before Superman appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938, human folklore was rife with super-beings. A new book takes a look at the more-than-human.
Read MoreIn Defense of Makeup
/Lisa Eldridge, in her new book Face Paint, traces the long and surprisingly volatile history of makeup. Jane Shmidt reviews.
Read More'Tis the Season
/Years after the "New Atheism" heyday, a new book by an old hand takes up the atheist cause with renewed urgency.
Read MoreThe Cultural Regressives
/In the summer of 2014, the so-called "Gamergate" controversy convulsed the world of online video gaming, raising issues of sexism and political correctness that still rage today. Phillip Lobo tries to look at the big picture.
Read MoreIf Only Historians Could Write Like Him Now!” The Art and Legacy of Edward Gibbon
/"Always scribble, scribble, scribble!" the King joked to the historian, and we remember it still; Luciano Mangiafico looks at the remarkable life of Edward Gibbon.
Read MorePilgrimages to Paris
/What is the allure of famous cemeteries like Paris’s Père Lachaise? Perhaps the crowds – of graves, and of visitors – reassure us that even in death we won’t really be alone.
Read MoreNever Have Hands Been So Vital to a Creature
/In Zachary Thomas Dodson's visionary and inventive debut novel, a violent past and a dystopian future are woven together into a tale of families, legacies ... and bats. Justin Hickey reviews Bats of the Republic.
Read MoreBanksy’s World
/An insurgent graffiti artist becomes an art house favorite and recognized brand; Jared Pollen explores the many-layered ironies of Banksy's world.
Read MoreInsurrections of the Bland
/The New Republic once embodied a vibrant, eclectic liberalism. A new anthology inadvertently tells a depressing story about the decline of that vision.
Read MoreThe Broken Clock
/Controversial former Vice President Dick Cheney and his journalist daughter Liz have written a book claiming that the exceptional nature of American power is being sullied and squandered by the current occupant of the White House. Greg Waldmann reviews Exceptional.
Read MoreConspicuous Obscurity
/Joshua Harmon's new collection, The Annotated Mixtape, bills itself as a set of learned and personal liner notes. It is that, but, alas says our reviewer, that isn't all that it is.
Read MoreBook Review: Keeping An Eye On Art
/Novelist Julian Barnes takes readers on a tour of some of his favorite French artists
Read MoreEcology of the Imagination
/For over sixty years, the story of humanity's weird fascination with UFOs has been unfolding across nations and societies. A new book goes beyond easy mockery to ask some, er, probing questions.
Read MoreBorder Reports
/How do we become ourselves? For Vivian Gornick, wandering the city streets is one way to both ask and answer that question; for us, her book becomes a bracing guide to doing the same.
Read MoreSoaring Aloft
/Years after his death, Olivier Messiaen remains a divisive figure. Michael Johnson explores the controversial composer’s imprint on modern music.
Read MoreTurning Points: Jane Avril in Paris
/For the woman who became dancer Jane Avril, life was transformed when she realized that what had been called mental illness she could claim for herself as art.
Read MoreBook Review: Islam and the Future of Tolerance
/A polite conversation by two intellectuals about an explosive subject: the rise of militant Islamic groups throughout the world, and the world's response
Read MoreBook Review: Gamelife
/Growing up in suburban Illinois, author Michael Clune discovered the world of gaming - and nothing was ever the same again
Read More
