Friends Like These: On Thoreau and Emerson
Daegan Miller reviews Jeffrey S. Cramer’s new book about the friendship of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson....
A One-Man Archive of Baseball History
A new biography of the dean of American baseball writing....
Mel Brooks, Boomer’s Comedian
Mel Brooks looked for boundaries to cross and conventions to subvert, but his best work rarely came from crossing social and political boundaries....
The Mind Has a Mind of Its Own: On Maria Popova’s “Figuring”
Janet Sternburg sweeps through the innovative “Figuring” by Maria Popova....
Portrait of an Artist: On Catherine Cusset’s “Life of David Hockney: A Novel”
Geoff Nicholson looks at “Life of David Hockney: A Novel” by Catherine Cusset, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan....
Philosophy for Everyone and No One: On Two Recent Books by John Kaag
John Muller discusses John Kaag’s innovation in the genre of philosophical memoir....
So Then Assemble Me: On Dana Greene’s “Elizabeth Jennings: ‘The Inward War’”
A. M. Juster scans “Elizabeth Jennings: ‘The Inward War’” by Dana Greene....
The Prophet Is Human
A towering new biography of a great American orator and public intellectual....
First and Not Last
"First: Sandra Day O’Connor" is the happy product of a rare publishing phenomenon: the marriage of a significant subject with a mature, empathetic writer....
The Awful Shapelessness of Loss: On Katharine Smyth’s “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf”
Morten Høi Jensen lingers over “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf” by Katharine Smyth....
On the Vice of Storytelling: An Interview with Aaron Shulman
Aaron Shulman tells a real-life family saga of modern Spain....
The Black Disk of the Sun: On Brian J. Boeck’s Biography of Mikhail Sholokhov, “Stalin’s Scribe”
Boris Dralyuk appreciates a “riveting political biography” of Mikhail Sholokhov, “Stalin’s Scribe” by Brian J. Boeck....
