Hearts of Darkness
Laura K. Field’s smart new book takes a critical look at MAGA’s Ivy League intellectuals.
George Case
· 8 min read
Books
A collection of 273 posts
Shakespeare in Love and Grief
It appears that people now find comfort in the idea that the life of even the greatest of writers is no more satisfying than their own.
Mallory Young
· 10 min read
Murder Most Foul
William J. Mann’s new book about the notorious Black Dahlia case is a valuable corrective to the cottage industry of speculative theories that proliferated after her murder in 1947.
Ron Capshaw
· 10 min read
Heir Jordan
Aaron Magid has written a timely biography of a consequential monarch.
Michael M. Rosen
· 8 min read
God of the Yawning Gaps
It’s hard to believe in God when even very bright, thoughtful people can’t come up with good reasons why you should.
Graham Daseler
· 13 min read
A Hardy Myth
A reply to Bruce Gilley.
Oliver Kamm
· 7 min read
The Women of January 6th
A new book details the conspiratorial thinking and dark histories of two Capitol rioters.
Claire Lehmann
· 7 min read
Stormclouds Over the Capitol
Mary Clare Jalonick’s oral history of the 6 January riot is an important corrective to the second Trump administration’s vandalism of the historical record.
Ron Capshaw
· 7 min read
Precipice of Collapse
Two new books about America’s justice system paint a bleak picture of a deeply divided country.
Ron Capshaw
· 8 min read
All the Nuzzi That’s Fit to Print
Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Valerie Pavilonis
· 10 min read
The Conned Artist
David Mamet’s new polemic is filled with muddled prose and muddled thought.
Graham Daseler
· 11 min read
Too Much Gilbert
The author of ‘Eat Pray Love’ has returned with a new memoir, which features all the usual problems with her writing writ large.
Charlotte Allen
· 22 min read
Ballad of a Song and Dance Man
An unorthodox new book by one of America’s finest nonfiction authors tries to make sense of Bob Dylan.
Ronald Radosh
· 20 min read
A Subterranean Celebration
How the 6 Gallery reading in San Francisco on 7 October 1955 changed the counterculture.
David S. Wills
· 13 min read
Better Than Bobby Fischer
Danny Rensch never became the world’s greatest chess player. But his improbable rise from traumatised cult child to dot-com wunderkind represents an even more impressive achievement.
Jonathan Kay
· 15 min read