Book Review: James Conant, Warrior Scientist
/US weapons-making scientist in two world wars and a path-making president of Harvard James Conant gets a generous biography, written by his granddaughter.
Read MoreBook Review: Pious Fashion
/A new book looks at the intricate world of Muslim women's clothing fashions.
Read MoreBook Review: Lightning Men
/Racially charged 1950 Atlanta is the setting for Thomas Mullen's brutal, terrific new crime thriller.
Read MoreTreat!
/Our book today is exactly as advertised: Treat!, a collection of incredible photos by Christian Vieler of dozens of dogs, each caught in the act moment of lunging for a thrown treat. It’s an inspired idea along the lines of Seth Casteel’s best-selling Underwater Dogs, and its inspiration rests on the same elements: not only […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Templars
/The Knights Templar have been captured on stage, page, and screen countless times; a new book separates history from legend.
Read MoreBook Review: Purpose & Desire
/A new book stares into the divide between living and non-living matter and finds the darndest things staring back.
Read MorePenguins on Parade: Great Expectations!
/Our book today is certainly a visual treat: it’s the new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens with deckle edges, French flaps, and an eye-catching wrap-around cover by Tom Haugomat, who faithfully signposts the novel’s most famous imagery: a boy in a graveyard, figures in a boat, sooty London, etc. This […]
Read MoreBook Review: Bunny Mellon
/Renowned socialite Bunny Mellon, who made headlines for an entire century, gets a big, generous new biography.
Read MoreBook Review: The Unfinished Palazzo
/A small portion of the life of one famous Venetian palace is told through the lives of three remarkable women who ruled it in the 20th century.
Read MoreBook Review: Out of China
/The roots of new Chinese nationalism extend back through well over a century of foreign meddling, as a comprehensive new history shows.
Read MoreThe Final Score!
/Our book today is a romance novel revolving around the US football season and so by rights ought to feel like an autumn book. But Jaci Burton’s The Final Score, one of Burton’s “Play-by-Play” sports romances, features a Claudio Marinesco cover and enough hot-and-heavy bedroom action to make it a last-day-of-summer reading experience. The basic […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Cold War
/A massive new study looks at the Cold War as a world war, touching - and often toppling - governments far from Washington or Moscow.
Read MoreBook Review: The Witch
/Paganism scholar Ronald Hutton's fascinating new book delves into the long history of the witch in human societies.
Read MoreBook Review: The Republic For Which It Stands
/America in the sordid wilderness years between the end of the Civil War and the dawn of the 20th century is the focus of the newest volume in the mighty Oxford History of the United States.
Read MorePenguins on Parade: The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers
/Some Penguin Classics, as we’ve noticed on rare occasions in the past, are quietly awe-inspiring, and this certainly applies to a new addition to the line, The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers, edited by Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates, who also write the volume’s introductory essay. The Penguin Portables are always highlights of […]
Read MoreBook Review: The World of Tomorrow
/The fates of three very different Irish brothers in prewar Manhattan intertwine in Brendan Mathews' impressive debut novel.
Read MoreDinosaur Empire!
/Our book today has a front cover positively festooned with possible titles, and no referee standing close at hand to declare one the winner. There’s a banner at the top that says “Earth Before Us.” Then right in the center in big green letters there’s Dinosaur Empire! And down at the bottom there’s a label-looking […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Future Won't Be Long
/An '80s club kid wises up and gets all sad and melancholy in Jarett Kobek's follow-up to this surprise hit "I Hate the Internet"
Read MoreThe Clean Light of Morning
/It wasn't a fat, sick, wife-killing madman who came to the English throne in 1509 - as a new book reminds readers, it was a glorious teenage prince.
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