On the Scent: The Smell of Money
/What are you paying for when you buy an expensive perfume--better materials? A longer-lasting scent? Placebo effect? Our regular perfume columnist sniffs it out.
Read MoreIlluminations
/Alberto Manguel’s library of 30,000 books is his Holy of Holies, and his new essay collection is a spiritual (and at times gnomic) journey through its most sacred texts
Read MoreMidlife Magic
/Emmanuel Carrere’s memoir is an uneasy blend of sexual fantasy and archival records, of a future with a beautiful young woman and a past haunted by a possible Nazi collaborator
Read MoreThe Ass Made Proud
/As Mark Twain pointed out a century ago, there's no evidence the man from Stratford ever read a book, much less owned one, and so the number of books alleging and 'proving' evidence of his grand fraud grows and grows ...
Read MoreAugust 2010 Issue
/draft notes from Adam Golaski's "Green"
Read MoreIn Defense of the Memory Theater
/Our bookshelves are a hedge against our failing memories, and as such, an extension of our minds. Nathan Schneider explores if and how this sacred role will be preserved in the age of digitization.
Read MoreOpen Ears on Clark Terry
/In his regular column, Brad Jones offers a warm tribute to a Jazz legend who has delighted audiences for over sixty years, from Duke Ellington's band to the Tonight Show
Read MoreOn the Scent: A Dozen+ Roses
/Roses: they might have smelled sweet to Shakespeare, but what did he know about the perfume industry? Our regular olfactory column takes on the biggest scent cliche of them all.
Read MoreI Am Asking You To Look At Me, Touch Me, Talk To Me
/There are options regarding /the ice. We can lick it or cross it. Further information /when you want it. Information always blinking. /A chime that rang.
Read MoreAmerican Golgotha
/When colonial tensions were at a boiling point, the British garrisoned troops on Boston Common and put the city under military occupation - until a certain Massacre, that is.
Read MoreRevolution in a Half Shell
/During the American Revolution, colonists ran blockades, fought sea-battles and ... sent in an attack-submarine? No, it's not time travel - it's the amazing story of the Turtle.
Read MoreJuly 2010 Issue
/"Pride" by Randolph Pfaff and Carissa Halston
Read MoreA Certain Perturbation
/In Absence of Mind, Marilynne Robinson explores both the dynamics of faith and the complacency of recent anti-faith screeds. But is her own book something of a fall from grace?
Read MoreThe Summer’s Rage of Fire
/World War I is known for its inching attrition, but both sides tried their hand at massive, all-or-nothing 'pushes' - including two of the worst, the Marne and the Somme.
Read More“For a Long Time I Hated God…”
/Famed reporter Sebastian Junger spent months embedded with frontline troops in Afghanistan's most forbidding region and tells the stories of the men who fight there.
Read MoreOn the Scent: The Forbidden Fruit Note
/In this installment of our new feature, Elisa Gabbert sniffs out the now-unfashionable subject of 'fruity' scents -- wherefore their disgrace? and are the critics in error?
Read MoreWrite, Repeat Redux
/In his new memoir, Christopher Hitchens regales his readers with one good story after another. But as John Rodwan shows, we've heard most of them before - lots of times.
Read MoreWedding Plans Are Postponed Due to Patricide
/The new Hollywood extravaganza "Prince of Persia" is based on a video game with long history. Fitting, then, that our gamer-expert Phillip A. Lobo should review them both.
Read MoreOut in the Open
/The forest in this season is a silent palace of abandoned rooms. /Only a few, precise sounds: as if someone were lifting twigs with tweezers; /as if, inside each tree-trunk, a hinge was creaking quietly.
Read MoreGeneral Winter Had Help
/We often let Napoleon's failure to conquer Russia obscure the fact that Napoleon was then conquered by Russia. A new book restores the balance of power.
Read More
