Books
421 results
Page 36
'An Officer and a Spy' by Robert Harris
A retelling of the Dreyfus affair
The Dreyfus affair, as presented by novelist Robert Harris in An Officer and a Spy, raises issues around secrecy and spying that still resonate today.
Articles
4 minute read
'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov
Sympathy for the devil?
Mikhail Bulgakov dealt with the twinned madnesses of Stalinism and his expectation of a short life through the full, flailing exercise of will, intelligence, and faith.
'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' by James Agee and Walker Evans
Let Us Now Praise James Agee
This is a book of stunning honesty and self-awareness and inspired observation. Its humanity is as blinding and magnificent and humble as its prose is magesterial.
Articles
5 minute read
Bill McKibben’s ‘Oil and Honey’
The Jeremiah of global climate change
In his new book, Oil and Honey, Bill McKibben, America’s foremost environmentalist, describes his own journey from prophet of disaster to political activist. It’s a crusade with the highest of stakes: our planetary future.
Articles
4 minute read
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Carville and Matalin's 'Love and War'
Twenty years later, James Carville and Mary Matalin’s dog and pony show has morphed into hackneyed dialogue suitable for reality TV.
Articles
3 minute read
A memory of Anne Sexton
Cleft
Poetry didn't move the young Bob Levin, until Anne Sexton left him wobbling, dizzied — but exposed, somehow, through pain to hope.
Evan Mandery’s 'A Wild Justice'
The Nine Lives of Capital Punishment
Opponents are more optimistic than they have been in almost 50 years that the death penalty is a dying institution. But such hopes have been dashed before, as Evan J. Mandery’s Wild Justice points out.
Articles
5 minute read
Eric Schlosser’s ‘Command and Control’
Nuclear roulette: Nothing can go wrong, go wrong….
Relax: We made it through the Cold War without a nuclear attack. Don’t relax: The U.S. still holds 4,500 nukes, all vulnerable to the mishaps and malfunctions that plague every complex human endeavor.
Articles
4 minute read
‘On Looking,’ by Alexandra Horowitz
A walker in the city (who really opens her eyes)
Walking is an utterly mundane way to experience our environment. It’s also one of the conceptually richest— especially if, like the cognitive psychologist Alexandra Horowitz, you choose perceptive companions.
Articles
5 minute read
Lynne Olson’s ‘Those Angry Days’
America’s forgotten civil war
The struggle over America’s entry into World War II remains a subject of perennial interest. Lynne Olson’s new book weaves the complex strands of the story while bringing its protagonists— especially the impenetrable Charles Lindbergh— vividly to life.
Articles
7 minute read