A dozen of our personal favorites from a year in reading fiction.

A dozen of our personal favorites from a year in reading nonfiction.

The ways in which kitchen tools and techniques affect what and how we eat.

The revolutionary painter, in the eyes of his contemporaries, was by turns a genius and simpleton.

The world inside can seem realer than any other.

New lives of folk music legends Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

A novelist reveals the real-life inspiration for his hard-luck fiction.

The "closest reader of our time" sets his sights on everything from Keith Moon's drumming to Paul Auster's prose.

Following Bach's music into the digital age and beyond.

A deeply sympathetic examination of the Founding Father's paradoxes.

When the menace of Stalinism knew no borders.

A former National Book Award judge casts an eye over this year's contenders.

A mansion-full of stuffed beasts provides a haunting setting for a novel of secrets and consequences.

The novelist's correspondence shows a determinedly independent sensibility working patiently at becoming a legend.