New Books

To love one’s country, one must acknowledge its past. In America, that means unpacking false universalism and examining its history of ideas... more »

Will Google rule? We accede to governance by “objective” algorithms, writes Matthew B. Crawford, but at a high political cost... Lpophy Bathroom Sink Mixer Taps Faucet Bath Waterfall Cold and Hot Water Tap for Washroom Bathroom and Kitchen Copper Single Hole Hot and Cold Spring redation

Our swimming pools, our selves. In place of the 20th-century throng of public bathing, we have the immersive solipsism of the infinity pool... more »

“The Soviet Union, it must be remembered, was a regime founded by freelance writers and editors. In other words, a nightmare.”... CANARM IPL392A03CH Cloe 3 Bulb Pendant Island Light, Chrome

On loving Wordsworth. He was “a solemn and unsexual man” with a talent for making you believe things without really telling you what they were... more »

A history of human imagination. Why the ability to see what isn't there is "the most essential bit of machinery we have"... Faucets Basin Mixer Sink Faucet Red Copper Hot&Cold Water Faucet Basin Mixer Tap One Hole

The complex history of gestures. Our nonverbal communication — from the “flagrant pelvis” to fascist salutes to Friends — is deeply rooted... more »

Lillian Ross’s brilliant viciousness spanned American letters: Capote was a leech, Nora Ephron a liar. And you wouldn’t have wanted to get her started on the NYRB... more »

In the 1980s, George Will’s conservatism was prophetic. Today his political sensibility is antiquated, addressing problems that no longer exist... Gyps Faucet Basin Mixer Tap Waterfall Faucet Antique Bathroom Mixer Bar Mixer Shower Set Tap antique bathroom faucet Press the key to maternal wash shower faucet kit brass painted white wall, hot and

Thoreau was a fault-finder; Emerson, a showoff. They wanted to be friends, but, as Emerson put it, “Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables”... MARCU HOME Basin Sink Mixer Tap Single Handle Sink Bathroom Faucet Basin Taps Plated Single Lever Faucet, Luxury Design Chrome Finish UK Standard Size 5 Years Warranty

Einstein during World War I. Cut off from scientists abroad, he tried to extend his untested ideas about relativity into a more powerful theory... more »

Thirty years since Cass Sunstein's first steps as a public intellectual, the world has changed. But not his ideas, or his dreary prose... more »

Sherlock Holmes and his world are an inexhaustible source of spinoffs, parodies, and adaptations. Michael Dirda has the latest... White Maifeini The New Arrival Of Copper Basin Mixer With Swivel Spout, White

"If what makes humans unique is the power of seeing what is not there, what makes them so destructive is that they believe what they have seen to be real"... more »

A psychologist studying empathy is like a climatologist studying polar ice: "We discover how valuable it is just as it recedes all around us”... Single Hole Sink Bathroom Tap Black Paint Faucet, Basin Faucet, Basin Faucet On Platform

When people write about Vasily Grossman, they often start by complaining that he is insufficiently appreciated — which is hardly true... Apple Green Set of 32 Preserve Everyday 9.5 Inch Plates, Set of 32, Pepper Red

Before its “golden age,” TV was thought to be formulaic, fluffy trash. The change in regard is in no small part the work of Emily Nussbaum... more »

Pundit on a pilgrimage. For David Brooks, a midlife awakening yielded a most unexpected insight into himself: “I realized I was a religious person”... more »

Graham Greene in Havana. What better destination for a novelist who delighted in exposing conflicting loyalties and shifting political allegiances?... more »

Robert Caro is a scholar of power — how it's obtained, how it's used. So it's odd that he seems so oblivious to his own... more »

“London’s only Lady detective.” Maud West had a talent for disguise, infiltration, and self-promotion. Her career is a snapshot of social change... more »

Nothing to lose but our iPhones. Cal Newport’s "digital minimalism" might restore solitude, conversation, and leisure to overcrowded lives... Fbict European hot and Cold on The Stage Antique Art Basin Faucet Single Hole Bathroom wash Basin Basin Copper Retro Faucet [Short] for Kitchen Bathroom Faucet Bid Tap

The lost art of reading holy texts. We too often seek only superficial confirmation of our interpretive biases. A more deliberate approach is needed... Pfister GT72-ALDD Alea 1-Handle Bar Prep Kitchen Faucet, Polished Nickel

Why we obsess over what we wear: New clothes appear to bestow a charm and intellect we otherwise can’t quite muster... more »

The most enterprising Marxist. Bhaskar Sunkara, founder of Jacobin, offers a manifesto for socialism that is thrillingly non-utopian... more »

The Naomi Wolf formula: convert dissatisfaction into epiphany, ignore facts and laws of nature, make blanket recommendations for all women... more »

How best to tell the story of philosophy? Instead of moving from one peak to another, wander the fertile valleys in between... more »

Time to read and think and, for Wordsworth, ply his skills with the spade. Why were the Quantock Hills so inspiring to Romantic poets?... Toilet Seat V-Type Toilet Lid with Slow-Close Mute Thicken urea-Formaldehyde Resin Toilet Seat Cover

The rise of Pushkinography. Academics have flocked to the author, at the rate of three books published per day. Is there anything new to say?... more »

The first appearance of the word Orwellian? Mary McCarthy used it to describe the fashion magazine Flair... more »

The Regency years in Britain — 1811-1820 — involved more than spotlessly dressed dandies, lascivious rakes, and Elizabeth Bennet look-alikes... LHbox Basin Mixer Tap Bathroom Sink Faucet Hot and cold basin tap home single on-the-water faucet bathroom basin mixer taps on the console

E.P. Thompson suffered an endless series of heroic defeats but refused grubby compromises and went down guns blazing... Qpw Sink Faucet Stainless Steel hot and Cold Pull Dish Basin Faucet Kitchen Sink Barrel Type Pull Drawing Processing

John Williams put a lot of himself into his most famous protagonist, William Stoner, a lackluster professor and difficult man... more »

Peacock tongue and fried dormice, brain-stuffed sausages, caviar-stuffed crayfish, liters of wine poured by naked waiters: The Romans took gluttony seriously... more »

Art criticism is art. It makes meaning out of the seemingly indecipherable, elucidating existential stakes. No one does this better than Peter Schjeldahl... Chrome-Plated Adjustable Temperature-Sensitive Led Faucetfaucet Lead-Free All Stainless Steel Kitchen Faucet Pull Down Cold and Hot Mixer Faucet

Step aside, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Mill. Meet the oddballs, underdogs, and outcasts of British philosophy... more »

The dissents of Wendell Berry. His dislikes include weather forecasts, unsmelly bathrooms, ballroom dancing, and the moon landing... MCL6320 MDRW-Rain shower shower set copper faucet shower shower head set,S902EC

In the Western tradition, what’s the most powerful and persuasive construct of the human imagination? It’s the idea of hell... more »

The history of psychiatry is the history of our beliefs about our own minds. Breakthrough and disappointment, dogmas and counter-dogmas... more »

Essays & Opinions

As Margaret Atwood has said, “every utopia contains a little dystopia” — something certainly true of Victorian fiction’s all-female paradises... more »

“Why the books? Why the babies? Why the essays? Why so many, why so fast?” Jill Lepore reveals her motivation — the memory of a brilliant friend... more »

Natalia Ginzburg’s family — left-leaning Jews in Fascist Italy — watched in horror as terror, internal exile, and prison began to permeate “ordinary” life... NAHANCO 612RC Clear 12 with Metal Clips-Coordinate Attachment Skirt Slack Hanger (Pack of 100)

The history of the poster. The form, which inspired dress-up parties in 1890s Paris, went on to be celebrated by Russian constructivists and derided by Sontag... more »

“The way to one’s own heaven,” wrote Nietzsche, “always leads through the voluptuousness of one’s own hell.” Could happiness exist without hell?... Ppigle Nostalgic gold Single-lever Mixing Tap Bathroom Faucet Basin Mixer With 360 ° Swivel Extension Spout Brass Finish

Death of the anonymous author. If algorithms can pinpoint the identity of a writer — say, Elena Ferrante — does art as a whole lose out?... more »

To constantly pursue something you can never catch is a form of madness. Yet that's exactly what we do by pursuing happiness... more »

Intellectuals agree: Unlike our ancestors, we live in a disenchanted society. But what of our obsession with healing crystals, chakras, and the occult?... more »

Iris Murdoch was that great, rare thing — a writer whose vision made you feel the sublime. Why aren't her books more widely read?... more »

During the Cold War, America's culture policy was foreign policy. Since then, America's culture policy has become a culture war... Pair Self Close Basin Taps Bathroom Lever Basin Sink Non Concussive Hot&Cold Mixer Faucet Set

"Summer reading is always a balancing act between the books I have loved, the books I feel I oughta love, and the books I sense I will love"... DOJOF Bathroom Sink Faucet Basin Mixer Tap Modern Brushed Waterfall Hot and Cold Water Ceramic Single Hole Single Lever Basin Sink Tap Bathroom Bar Faucet

Is discussion overrated? Is it not as likely to generate bitterness, and division as it is to enlighten or foster consensus?... YDALJ Stainless Steel Faucet Kitchen Sink Square redatable Hot And Cold Lead-Free Faucet Drawing

If the Apollo missions brought us the age of consumer technology, Jill Lepore isn't impressed: "My country went to the moon and all I got was this lousy surveillance state"... more »

The buzzword of this decade is authenticity, which is a shame because it impedes progress and aspiration... more »

Svetlana Alexievich is on a mission to collect memories before they disappear, to correct for the rewriting of history by propaganda... Deluxe Little Rabbit Girl Floral Themed Baby Shower Party Bundle, Includes 20 each of 5 x7 Fill In Invitations, Diaper Raffle Tickets, Bring a Book Cards & 2” Thank You Favor Stickers w Envelopes

“We live today in a laboratory of human suffering as vast and terrible as that in which Dickens and Dostoyevsky wrote.” The America of Nelson Algren’s imagination... TOWEL RACK HOME Bathroom Sink Basin Tap Brass Mixer Tap Washroom Mixer Faucet Pull kitchen faucet 304 stainless steel faucet hot and cold-water faucet water faucet Stainl

Lacan, the terrible. He was avaricious, classist, and an awful father. Tasked with treating his suffering daughter, he headed to the brothel instead... more »

The origins of beach reading. A 19th-century invention, it was for “airy, buoyant, salty, sunny, breezy” books. Or, it was the consumption of “pestiferous trash”... more »

What is liberalism? A politics? A temperament? A credo? Maybe it's like a rhinoceros: A once-successful animal that now stands on the edge of extinction... Glz Tap Faucet Basin Basin Faucet Copper redating Faucet

The debate over political correctness has devolved into camps hardened by moralism and hypocrisy. Another path is possible... Taps Kitchen Basin Bathroom Washroomdual Handle Basin Vessel Sink Taps Deck Mounted Brass Hot and Cold Washing Basin Faucet Antique Brass Bathroom Faucet

Jared Diamond once at least went through the motions of adding statistical and scholarly evidence to his books. No longer... YAWEDA 304 Stainless Steel Kitchen Faucet Into Wall Cold and Hot Mixer Mixer Single Lead Without Lead

Intellectuals easily uncover Orwellian traits in American politics. They have a harder time, writes George Packer, acknowledging the Thought Police closer to home... more »

Andrea Dworkin was prescient; she lived a version of Me Too long before Me Too. Yet her analysis of pornography has little traction. Why?... more »

Sylvia Plath at Smith College. She read Chaucer and Dante, and she broke off relationships. “I want a man who isn’t jealous of my creativity in other fields than children”... more »

This year the Modern Language Association’s annual conference took as its principal subject the death of its own significance... more »

The ever-expanding subtitle. Publishers pile up keywords in a mad attempt to boost SEO. Time for readers to revolt?... more »

Against knowledge. It’s a crude, archaic concept, a relic of a bygone age, and it harms our real ways of thinking... more »

It’s like Waze, but for social theory. Cass Sunstein wants government to help citizens navigate their lives. What if they don’t know where to go?... Retro Faucet Brass Bathroom Mixer Taps Medium High Arc Swivel Spout

For Adrienne Rich, the great philosopher of secrets, the wish to keep and share them goes to the heart of intimacy, and why we value art... Wedgwood Hibiscus Rim Soup Plate 9

The click-swipe-and-rate economy has devastated journalism, art, literature, and entertainment. Now it's coming for the academy... Black Retro Deluxe FaucetingFree Shipping Brass Basin gold Faucet Hot And Cold Water Single Hole Single Handle Sink Bathroom Mixer Tap Xt827,Chrome

When are writers polymaths, and when are they merely trespassing superficially into areas of knowledge they haven’t mastered? The lesson of Naomi Wolf... more »

Art in an age of self-exposure. Gone is the withholding of secrets — novelists now put self-consciousness front and center... more »

The idea that thinkers should distinguish private from public views is associated with Leo Strauss and the right. Now it's ascendant on the left... Push Down Drain with Overflow, Polished Chrome

Should writers still make things up? With more fact-based fiction, purely fictional fiction faces a new reality... Tap Faucet,Personality Creative Hot And Cold Washbasin Faucet Bathroom Cabinet Bathroom Copper Single Hole Nordic Black Table Below Basin,14.5 5cm

“The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him," said Arthur Miller, who understood shame... more »

She had Sartre for conversation; he, only drunks and gamblers. Inside the short-lived long-distance relationship of Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir... more »

Leslie Epstein has spent 40 years in the same wooden chair in the same lopsided room teaching fiction. The job is changing... more »

Slaughterhouse Five at 50. Despite Vonnegut’s conviction that the book was a failure, it has endured surprisingly well... Generic tap kitchenlar nostalgia re tap cellar Wall tap sink nostalgia retro mixer kitchen tap kitchen Wall tap sink mixer kitch

"How much you can learn from someone by looking very carefully at them without judgement.” Lucian Freud’s brute nudity... GONGFF Environmental predection removable, thickened and insulating hot-tub PVC for indoor and outdoor use (size 65 cm + cover + bag)

The web is awash in tips from successful women writers — here’s what they’re reading, their Sunday routine. Does it help us understand them?... more »

“A monster of arrogance and inconsideration.” Susan Sontag cut through received wisdom — an approach sorely missing today... Lagoon 2'6 x 8' - Runner Momeni Rugs GRAMEGM-12LAG2680 Gramercy Collection, 100% Wool Hand Loomed Contemporary Area Rug, 2'6 x 8' Runner, Lagoon

New books reinterpret Homeric poems toward feminist ends. But in advancing a 21st-century politics, do they rob readers of ethical ambiguities?... more »

One notable thing about Stefan Zweig’s writing is how varied the reactions to it have been — in his own time and our own... Ienjoy Home Bed in a Bag, Full, Sage

Make philosophy great again. The field has been reduced to bland Continental and analytic variants — a trend that must be reversed... Blossom Bucket 191-70018 Large Corrugated Metal Container, Multi-colord

Humor is often lost in translation, especially if it's being translated from German. Yes, the jokes are ponderous. But they're funny, too... Ecl griferias Flash Washbasin Tap

The myth of advice. Successful people want to be helpful. But their advice sounds empty and canned — because it is... more »

Today’s intellectual mode: “Learn an attitude and inquire no further.” Marilynne Robinson on why certain ideas, like economic “associationism,” have vanished... Hlluya Professional Sink Mixer Tap Kitchen Faucet The water nozzles all copper antique balcony outdoor faucet faucet G12 the garden hose to the drain valve,

The cultural contradictions of Daniel Bell. He never could quite reconcile the Jewish conservative and the Yiddish radical within him... more »

E.H. Carr and the fate of facts. “By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation”... All American Collection New Embossed Throw Blanket with Sherpa Borrego Backing Queen King Size (Sage L.Green)

Wit, mockery, joking, buffoonery: The oldest monastic rule we know of forbade joking. Laughter has long had a dangerously democratic quality... 360° redating Faucet Retro Faucetold Wash Basin Wash Basin Single Hole Basin Faucet Washable Head Telescopic