A new volume of the writer and thinker's journals reveals a mind bent on relentless self-interrogation.

A robbery gone wrong sends a child into exile in a story that recalls the work of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

The first volume in the memoir of a "narrative wizard" confronts the author's contentious relationship with his father.

A study of the most attention-getting of body parts reveals an organ as mysterious as it is vital.

The Nobel laureate's new novel addresses familiar themes in the story of a soldier's homecoming.

For a brief period in the 1960s, unprecedented cinematic freedom and innovation flourished in Czechoslovakia.

Butchery of more than one kind is at the heart of Commissario Guido Brunetti's latest case.

The author returns to the world of Ship Breaker, and a young woman's encounter with the dogs of war.

A memoir of life on Ojibwe reservation is both a portrait of a vanishing world and a look at why it's disappearing.

A new collection showcases the songwriting talents of the coal miner's daughter and feminist pioneer.

A hundred years before Occupy Wall Street, a movement aimed at the structures of power seemed ready to explode.

How John Singer Sargent captured the dawn of a new century in his portrait of two New Yorkers.

A life of playwright and gadfly Lillian Hellman suggests that her reputation in large part turns on her gender.

A novelist takes up the tale of a plot to kill a Nazi leader. But how much is truth?

From Senate majority leader to vice president to president, Lyndon Johnson's political metamorphosis during the years between 1958 and 1964 is captured in this masterpiece of historical biography.

A story of friendship and tragedy lightened by quirky humor.

After her mother's death, the author and environmentalist found a silent mystery.

The novelist's essays take on the dangers of a networked world -- and the grief and anger left behind after a friend's death.

A California haunted by death and suffused with sex is the subject of D. A. Powell's biting collection of verse.

In the golden age of the Big Con, the wires and rails that knit American cities made a perfect web.

The author's latest experiment with himself is a whirlwind journey through a thousand fitness regimens.

Though he deplored slavery, James Madison owned slaves. A new book examines the Founding Father's contradictory conduct.

Why do we love the water? A journalist and swimming enthusiast dives into the question.

A record of death defied and life well lived.

The painful task of saying goodbye to good books.

The author of About Schmidt brings his aging hero back to confront the prospect of a last chance at love.

A new collection of Philip Larkin's verse attempts to capture the acerbic poet's work in toto.

A Hungarian author's portrait of village life pulls no punches.

A biography of the artist whose work, "as rich and dynamic as it may be, is not as paradoxical as the man was."

A story of life in a Russian prison camp, by turns comic and shockingly honest.