Book Review: Presidents' Secrets
/A concise, hard-hitting new book outlines the long history of secrecy at the heart of US government
Read MoreBook Review: Plotting to Kill the President
/A new history by the author of Hunting the President uncovers the long history of US presidential assassination attempts
Read MoreNorman Lebrecht's Album of the Week - Kapralova piano music
/Vitezslava Kapralova was a pioneering conductor as well as a developing composer, but she died when she was only 25 years old. A disc of her piano music suggests just how much was lost when she passed away.
Read MoreBook Review: Powers of Darkness
/As a revelatory new version shows, the original Icelandic translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula took more than a few liberties with the text ...
Read MoreBook Review: The House of Truth
/A wide-ranging and deeply-researched new book chronicles the history of an influential Washington political salon
Read MoreNorman Lebrecht's Album of the Week - Renée Fleming's Distant Light
/Renée Fleming is ending her stage career. Let's hope this album, which plays to all her weaknesses, isn't the end of her recording career.
Read MoreBook Review: Hardwick Hall
/The great old fortress of good taste, Hardwick Hall, is the focus of a beautiful new anthology of essays on the place's storied art and architecture
Read MoreBook Review: William the Conqueror
/The latest volume in the Yale English Monarchs series is a hefty new biography of the man who started the whole series in the first place: William the Conqueror
Read MoreThe Disgraceful Lowlands of Writing
/Reiner Stach's masterful, epic biography of Kafka is finally complete. Never has the man been less mysterious, but can it illuminate the confounding, beguiling mystery of his writing?
Read MoreWest of Lovelorn
/The author of the uproarious debut Radium Baby returns with a surreal and oddly heartfelt riff on the YA genre, set in an Old West that ripples with unreality.
Read MoreRacing Toward Mytilene
/Two and a half millennia ago, a war between Athens and Sparta drove Greek civilization to its knees. A new book explores what demagogues and democracies can teach us about the fall of nations.
Read MoreBar-Kochba and Old Bolsheviks
/Not easily classified, Paul Goldberg's The Yid is historical but counterfactual, polemical yet absurd. Above all it is a testament to the Jewish experience.
Read Moreback-door typical
/a poem
Read MoreOne More for the Pantheon
/In tense action scenes, stylized dialogue, and rich narrative depth, novelist Ron Hansen tells the story of the Old West's signature outlaw, Billy the Kid.
Read MoreA Year with the Tudors II: Have You Heard It?
/A new book on the famous Tudor dynasty promises that most alluring of all perspectives on royalty: the back-stage details. But can it succeed? A Year with the Tudors continues.
Read More5 June 2016 / Birmingham
/a poem
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “It is always best to be invited when entering a dangerous place”
/Rennie Airth returns with the fifth novel featuring John Madden, who belongs in the pantheon of great, civilized English sleuths
Read MoreMind the Gap
/A new historical thriller hearkens back to the sensation novels of the 1860s, offering up a twisty tale of murder and madness. But can it live up to its predecessors?
Read MoreJung-leland
/Bruce Springsteen's therapist was one of the inspirations for his memoir Born to Run. Does the book help him make sense of his transformation from wild and innocent rock 'n' roller to millionaire icon?
Read MoreBook Review: Montaigne
/An English-language translation of a monumental biography of the founder of modern essay form urges readers to remember the man, not the legend.
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