Book Review

A Better Way to Look at Trees

What pioneering new research has revealed about the forest

• Rebecca Giggs
• July/August 2021 Issue

Edgar Allan Poe’s Other Obsession

Known as a master of horror, he also understood the power—and the limits—of science.

• Daniel Engber
• July/August 2021 Issue

The Bleak Prescience of Richard Wright

A previously unpublished novel invites a reassessment of a writer criticized for his doctrinaire pessimism about race in America.

• Imani Perry
• June 2021 Issue

The Opportunists

In Louis Menand’s monumental new study of Cold War culture, success owes less to vision and purpose than to self-promotion.

• Mark Greif
• June 2021 Issue

Women Refusing to Be Like Other Women

New novels by Rachel Cusk and Jhumpa Lahiri explore the liberating power of isolation.

• Claire Dederer
• June 2021 Issue

The Dharma of Working Out

In her new memoir, Alison Bechdel runs, climbs, bikes, skis, spins, and Soloflexes her way toward transcendence.

• James Parker
• June 2021 Issue

Don’t Underrate the Political Spouse

How Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan advanced their husbands’ ambitions—and their own

• Liza Mundy
• May 2021 Issue

The True Costs and Benefits of Fracking

New York is getting more out of the domestic oil boom than North Dakota ever will.

• Sarah Smarsh
• May 2021 Issue

The Awful Wisdom of the Hostage

What a new memoir reveals about endurance—and extreme remorse

• Graeme Wood
• May 2021 Issue

When Did Following Recipes Become a Personal Failure?

Sam Sifton’s exciting, but daunting, invitation to improvise

• Laura Shapiro
• April 2021 Issue

The Relentless Philip Roth

In his life as in his fiction, the author pursued the shameful, the libidinous, the repellent.

• James Parker
• April 2021 Issue

The Radiant Inner Life of a Robot

Kazuo Ishiguro returns to masters and servants with a story of love between a machine and the girl she belongs to.

• Judith Shulevitz
• April 2021 Issue

What Happened to Jordan Peterson?

Adored guru and reviled provocateur, he dropped out of sight. Now the irresistible ordeal of modern cultural celebrity has brought him back.

• Helen Lewis
• April 2021 Issue

Extremely Online and Wildly Out of Control

Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel explores the mind, and heart, of an internet-addled protagonist.

• Jordan Kisner
• March 2021 Issue

Amazon Has Transformed the Geography of Wealth and Power

Understanding America in the giant company’s shadow

• Vauhini Vara
• March 2021 Issue

Tom Stoppard’s Double Life

For Britain’s leading postwar playwright, virtuosity and uncertainty go hand in hand.

• Gaby Wood
• March 2021 Issue

The Real Legacy of the Suffrage Movement

The cause produced undaunted trailblazers, Black and white, who continued to pursue social reform.

• Deborah Cohen
• January/February 2021 Issue

Uncovering the Cultural Revolution’s Awful Truths

Rebel historians chronicle a past that the Chinese Communist Party grows ever more intent on erasing.

• Barbara Demick
• January/February 2021 Issue

How Civilization Broke Our Brains

What can hunter-gatherer societies teach us about work, time, and happiness?

• Derek Thompson
• January/February 2021 Issue

Martin Amis Goes Out With a Bang

In Inside Story, his final novel, the comic master delights, infuriates, and secures his legacy.

• James Parker
• January/February 2021 Issue