Revealing the candid passions and ambitions of the austere O Pioneers! author.

A tale of an English estate -- and those who cherish, neglect, and covet it.

A critic looks back at her favorite read of the year.

Their father was universally beloved, but growing up Dickens led, more often than not, to hard times.

The network of spies and secret police that kept Good Queen Bess in power.

The unsung deeds of a hero of the Royal Navy.

The True Grit author's short work reveals the range of an inimitable and hilarious American voice.

The alpha and omega of a comic novelist's oeuvre.

Reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's surprisingly dark American epic.

A historian goes on the hunt for the details of literary lives most of us overlook.

Two new books unveil the work of the double agents who ran circles around the Nazis.

A geriatric gumshoe takes the case.