Nonfiction

"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them." — Federico García Lorca

Performing the Patient: On Emily Wells’s “A Matter of Appearance”
Emma Cohen reviews Emily Wells’s memoir of chronic illness, “A Matter of Appearance.”
Emma R. CohenJun 20, 2023
- Memoir & Essay
- Nonfiction
Romantic Myths of American Environmentalism: On Scott Chaskey’s “Soil and Spirit”
Jenny Liou reviews Scott Chaskey’s “Soil and Spirit: Cultivation and Kinship in the Web of Life.”
Jenny LiouJun 18, 2023
- Nonfiction
- Science & Technology
Sleepwalking to Madness in Mid-Century America: On Audrey Clare Farley’s “Girls and Their Monsters”
Ellen Wayland-Smith is haunted by Audrey Clare Farley’s exposé, in “Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America,” of white American mid-century pathologies.
Ellen Wayland-SmithJun 13, 2023
When a White Man Writes a Good Book About Africa: On Tim Cocks’s “Lagos”
Kovie Biakolo contemplates Tim Cocks’s 2022 book “Lagos: Supernatural City.”
Kovie BiakoloJun 12, 2023
- Nonfiction
A World That Was Not the World: A Conversation with Laird Hunt
Sean McCoy talks to Laird Hunt about “This Wide Terraqueous World: Essays in Fiction.”
Sean McCoyJun 8, 2023
A Considerable Aura: On Adam Shatz’s “Writers and Missionaries”
Ann Manov reviews Adam Shatz’s “Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination.”
Ann ManovJun 6, 2023
- Literary Criticism
- Nonfiction
Permission to Meander: A Conversation with Drew Millard
Paul Thompson speaks with Drew Millard about his new book, “How Golf Can Save Your Life.”
Paul ThompsonJun 5, 2023
- Nonfiction
- Sports
Uncomfortable Somethings: On Isabel Zapata’s “In Vitro”
Claire Calderón reviews Isabel Zapata’s “In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation.”
Claire CalderónJun 3, 2023
It’s Not What You Think: On Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell’s “The Smartness Mandate”
Evan Selinger reviews Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell’s “The Smartness Mandate” and finds it “vertigo-inducing.”
Evan SelingerMay 30, 2023
- Nonfiction
- Science & Technology
Something Reconstructed: On Pirkko Saisio’s “The Red Book of Farewells”
Niina Pollari reviews Pirkko Saisio’s “The Red Book of Farewells.”
Niina PollariMay 15, 2023
- Nonfiction
From Qing Imperial Collection to Chinese National Treasures: On Adam Brookes’s “Fragile Cargo”
Tobie Meyer-Fong reviews “Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China’s Forbidden City” by Adam Brookes.
Tobie Meyer-FongMay 15, 2023
- Nonfiction
Haunted by Queer Marxism: On Petrus Liu’s “The Specter of Materialism”
Samuel Clowes Huneke reviews Petrus Liu’s “The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus."
Samuel Clowes HunekeMay 14, 2023
- Nonfiction