Books
A small area in France has a long history of extraordinary kindness to strangers.
How Black Suffragettes Subverted the Domestic Sphere
Anna Julia Cooper was among the educators who emphasized the power of communal care as a method of addressing larger structural ills.
The Books Briefing: What Happens When You Lose the Place You Come From
The fractured paths leading away from a homeland: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The setting of her new novel is terror-ridden Nigeria, a world away from her native Ireland, but the psychic territory is familiar.
And Then Job Said Unto the Lord: You Can’t Be Serious
In a new translation of the Book of Job, the famously repentant hero gives God a piece of his mind.
Internet Slang Is More Sophisticated Than It Seems
A new book argues that informal online communication is sometimes more advanced than even the most elegant prose.
The Books Briefing: What Toni Morrison Saw
The words and worlds of a literary titan: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Amazon Publishing Juggernaut
What does the e-commerce giant want with the notoriously fickle world of publishing? To own your every reading decision.
How Economists’ Faith in Markets Broke America
And what it means for our future
The Magnitude of Toni Morrison
The literary titan, who died yesterday at age 88, wrote black characters with a rare compassion that ripples far beyond her own work.
Remembering the Peerless Toni Morrison
The author, teacher, Nobel laureate, and grande dame of American letters has died at the age of 88.
Deconstructing Clarence Thomas
The justice’s reactionary legal philosophy rests on faith in the power of adversity to fuel black progress.
The Books Briefing: America’s Pastime
Your weekly guide to the best in books will take you out to the ball game.
Reconstructing the Memories of Aging Matriarchs
Two recent novels attempt to unearth the pasts of forgetful family members, weighing the benefits of storytelling for older and younger generations.
Covers blown—by a page-turner. Your weekly guide to the best in books.
A Book That Examines the Writing Processes of Two Poetry Giants
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge once spent a grueling year in nature, subsequently producing some of their most resonant works.
A drowning haunts Susan Steinberg’s dark first novel about teenagers’ summer adventures.
The Students of Sex and Culture
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Zora Neale Hurston—spurred on by Franz Boas—revolutionized the way we think about humanity.
The Books Briefing: One Small Step That Opened a Lifetime of Wonder
One giant leap for literature: Your weekly guide to the best in books
Chuck Klosterman, the author of Raised in Captivity, believes that art criticism often has very little to do with the work itself.