Twisted Tree

A South Dakota town caught in the spotlight of a tragedy is revealed through a chorus of American voices that call to mind William Faulkner's Mississipians. Read more...

Hard Rain Falling

Down and out in Portland and San Francisco. Read more...

The Mower

That Andrew Motion's stately work has been slow to arrive on this side of the pond is a sad reminder of how much fine poetry Americans routinely miss... Read more...

The Lieutenant

Americans have often glorified the "First Encounter" of colonizing Europeans with indigenous people. Read more...

The Black Hole War

At the conceptual edge of astrophysics, two titans of the field battle over the shape of the universe. Read more...

Fall

On her fourth record, the popular vocalist and songwriter reveals some sharp edges. Read more...

The Ghosts of Belfast

A former IRA hit man is sent on a final mission -- by the shades of his victims. Read more...

Ford County

A collection of short stories from the celebrated master of the legal thriller offer a take on Faulkner's imagined Mississippi. Read more...

Farber on Film : The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber

Three and a half decades of a pathbreaking critic's work on film from Fuller to Fassbinder. Read more...

Poem Strip

At the end of the '60s, hedonism and terror collided with each other. Read more...

Revolution 1989

Why did the Berlin Wall fall precisely twenty years ago this month? Or is that even the right question? Read more...

Liar

A young woman's predilection for untruth hides an even more unsettling secret. Read more...

The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York

No matter the book or the artwork, Matteo Pericoli always celebrates unique points of view only he could provide, be it the undulating perimeter of Manhattan Island from its rivers; one of his children’s book characters; or a 397-foot, block-plus-long mural featuring architectural highlights from 70 cities from around the globe for John F. Kennedy International Airport. Read more...

The Way of the World

In Francophone countries, Nicolas Bouvier (1929–98) has the reputation of Bruce Chatwin: stylist extraordinaire and philosopher of travel. Read more...

Finch

From the author of City of Saints and Madmen, a detective story set in a shadowy city ruled by fungal invaders. Read more...

Crude World

A harrowing look at the conditions and consequences of the industrialized world's insatiable demand for oil. Read more...

Signal Morning

Will Cullen Hart returns to the sonic playground of Circulatory System, and to the balancing act between experiment and indulgence. Read more...

Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose

How a seven-foot skeleton found its way from Monticello to a French naturalist's collection -- and what it told Europe about America. Read more...

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

Christopher Robin's gentle coterie makes an encore appearance in this revisitation of A. A. Milne's beloved characters. Read more...

Z.

A thriller as effective in its stylish satire as it is transparent in its political sympathies. Read more...

The New Black

A psychoanalyst's call to think of "depression" as a factor of experience -- not illness. Read more...

Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife

Looking past the icon to find the writer. Read more...

Save the Deli

Will the pastrami on rye go the way of the dodo? Read more...

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

The authors of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar return with some deadly jesting. Read more...

Starting Point: 1979-1996

A new collection of essays by and interviews with famed anime creator Hayao Miyazaki. Read more...

A Fine Romance

A case for the distinctively Jewish aspect of the American Songbook. Read more...

Masterpiece Comics

A hilarious -- and literarily astute -- mashup of literary monuments with the styles of cartoonists ranging from Windsor McKay to Charles Schulz. Read more...

Civil War Wives

A southern abolitionist, a general's spouse, and the first lady of the Confederacy. Read more...

The Book Shopper

A life among the leaves. Read more...

My Guilty Pleasure

The followup disc from the pop chanteuse of Disco Romance returns to dance clubs past. Read more...

November 23: On this day in 1644 John Milton published his pamphlet, Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. Having just returned from a visit to the imprisoned Galileo, Milton’s famous…
What children's book character do Noam Chomsky, Newt Gingrich, and Hugh Hefner share an affection for? Readers of this blog will remember our asking that question…
Books CDs, DVDs to know about now
Hurry Down Sunshine
The former “Freelance” columnist for the Times Literary Supplement tells the extraordinary story of the summer his teenage daughter descended into psychosis. "They stole my words," she tells her father, and in supplying his own to treat her -- and his own -- affliction, Greenberg has written a haunting book. Now in paperback. Read our review.
G. I. Bones
The latest installment in one of the most underrated detective series around has US military policemen Ernie Bascom and George Sueno looking into further criminal doings in the demilitarized zone on the South Korean border.
Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer’s lyrics set the highest standards in the American songbook. Collaborating with Hoagy Carmichael, Harry Warren, Harold Arlen, and Jerome Kern, among many others, he set unforgettable words to some of the most memorable melodies in popular music...