The New York TimesThe Arts The Holocaust Survivor Who Deciphered Nazi DoublespeakThe New York Times - By GAL BECKERMANIn August 1944, as soon as Soviet troops swept the Nazis out of eastern Poland, a group of Jewish intellectuals rushed to cities like Lublin and Lodz to begin collecting and recording, scouring for any
The New York TimesThe Arts Can an Outsider Tell the Story of Post-Revolution Egypt?The New York Times - By YASMINE EL RASHIDITHE BURIED An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution By Peter Hessler The stories of theft, vandalism and lawlessness were rife for an ongoing period of some months following the 18 days that marked the
The New York TimesMenopause In ‘Flash Count Diary,’ Darcey Steinke Documents the Enigma, the Rage and the Power of MenopauseThe New York Times - By JENNIFER SZALAIAbout halfway through “Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life,” the American novelist Darcey Steinke describes lying down for a massage at a Russian bath house in Paris and coming
The New York TimesThe Arts From the Graphic Novelist Seth, a Masterwork 20 Years in the MakingThe New York Times - By BRIAN SELZNICKWhat does time look like? How do we represent its passage when time is an abstract idea, yet (as the linguist George Lakoff points out) we often discuss it as though it were a physical object? We lose
The New York TimesMemoirs Behind the Scenes of Choosing the Best MemoirsThe New York Times - By DWIGHT GARNER, PARUL SEHGAL and JENNIFER SZALAIThe Times’s staff book critics — Dwight Garner, Parul Sehgal and Jennifer Szalai — recently endeavored to choose the best 50 memoirs published in the past 50 years. Below, they talk about the process the
The New York TimesThe Arts He Was a Famed Novelist of America’s Underclass. What Happened?The New York Times - By SUSAN JACOBYNEVER A LOVELY SO REAL The Life and Work of Nelson Algren By Colin Asher “Never a Lovely So Real,” the luminous title of Colin Asher’s absorbing new biography of the once famous but now neglected Chicago
The New York TimesThe Arts Golf Balls! Pencils! Whales! What Makes an Author’s Obsession a Thrill, Not a Bore?The New York Times - By MARY NORRISAmong my obsessions I include cows, pencils and all things Greek, and I count myself lucky to have been able to write for publication about two of these things. I used to think it was self-indulgent or
The New York TimesMemoirs The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 YearsThe New York Times The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.
The New York TimesThe Arts A Rich, Twisted, Gloriously Cacophonous Novel of Village LifeThe New York Times - By LAIRD HUNTMax Porter does damaged psyche well. In his widely acclaimed 2016 debut, “Grief Is the Thing With Feathers” — recently brought to the stage by Enda Walsh in a production starring Cillian Murphy — a human-size
The New York TimesThe Arts A Captivating Coming-of-Age Story Inspired by the TudorsThe New York Times - By JENNIFER DONNELLYMargaret means pearl, which is a good name for me. In the opening pages of Dylan Meconis’s graphic novel QUEEN OF THE SEA (Walker Books, 400 pp., $24.99; ages 12 and up), the young heroine tells us her
The New York TimesThe Arts Twenty Years After a Brutal Massacre, It’s Payback TimeThe New York Times - By YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEETHE PATIENT ASSASSIN A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India’s Quest for Independence By Anita Anand On April 13, 1919, a column of British troops marched into the Jallianwala Bagh, a public garden
The New York TimesJacqueline Kennedy Onassis A Year in Paris That Transformed Jacqueline Kennedy OnassisThe New York Times - By ANN MAHIn August 1949, a 20-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier arrived in France and began a year that would change her life. Before her marriages to Jack and Aristotle, before the glamour and the tragedy, before she
The New York TimesDonald Trump ‘She’s Not My Type’: Accused Again of Sexual Assault, Trump Resorts to Old InsultThe New York Times - By PETER BAKER and NEIL VIGDORWASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday again denied assaulting a columnist for Elle magazine in the dressing room of a high-end clothing store more than 20 years ago, countering her explosive accusation
The New York TimesThe Arts ‘I Just Had to Do My Emotional Homework’: How a 30-Year-Old Wrote a Family SagaThe New York Times - By JOUMANA KHATIBIt’s not every day you find a novel in which the grandparents can’t keep their hands off each other. Claire Lombardo’s book debut, “The Most Fun We Ever Had,” out on Tuesday from Doubleday, is narrated
The New York TimesThe Arts On the Centennial of Iris Murdoch’s Birth, Remembering a 20th-Century GiantThe New York Times - By DWIGHT GARNERPeople who met the British novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) tended to want to describe her. She had big, round blue eyes, strawlike hair and a broad face with high cheekbones. She resembled
The New York TimesThe Arts Mark Haddon’s Strange, Exciting New Novel Has Its Roots in Ancient MythThe New York Times - By SARAH LYALLThree years ago, the British director Trevor Nunn brought Shakespeare’s not-often-performed play “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” to Brooklyn. A retelling of the ancient legend of Apollonius, “Pericles” is about
The New York TimesThe Arts A Venom-Spiked Cocktail of Marriage, Family and MurderThe New York Times - By SARAH LYALLLike theatrical villains who arrive a couple of scenes into the play, Liv and Griff Adamson slither into view in “The Snakes” preceded by their reputations. At first, it’s hard to see what all the preamble-d
The New York TimesThe Arts A Rich, Engrossing Family Saga, Spiked With Sisterly MaliceThe New York Times - By JADE CHANGThe big family secret is revealed almost immediately in Claire Lombardo’s engrossing debut novel, “The Most Fun We Ever Had,” which connects four decades in the lives of the Sorensons of Oak Park, Chicago.
The New York TimesBooks New & Noteworthy, From R. Kelly to White House CorruptionThe New York TimesDEEP RIVER, by Karl Marlantes. (Grove, $30.) Marlantes, best known for the immersive Vietnam War novel “Matterhorn,” here offers a historical family epic about Finnish brothers working as loggers in the
The New York TimesMarvel Entertainment Marvel’s Heroes Take Center StageThe New York Times - By GEORGE GENE GUSTINESAvengers, assemble — and break a leg! Marvel’s mighty heroes are the stars of a new series of educational one-act stage plays intended for a high school audience. Called Marvel Spotlight, the plays focus
The New York TimesLiterature Our Top Editor Revisits How We Handled E. Jean Carroll’s Allegations Against TrumpThe New York Times - By LARA TAKENAGAAfter an article last week reported the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegations against President Trump, some readers accused The Times of downplaying the story. Many have written to ask us
The New York TimesJudith Krantz Judith Krantz, Whose Tales of Sex and Shopping Sold Millions, Dies at 91The New York Times - By MARGALIT FOXJudith Krantz, who almost single-handedly turned the sex-and-shopping genre of fiction into the stuff of high commerce, making her one of the world’s best-selling novelists if not one of the most critically
The New York TimesThe Arts For an Immigrant Family, Sarajevo Still Casts Its ShadowThe New York Times - By MADELEINE SCHWARTZDepending on how you read this two-part book by Aleksandar Hemon, you’ll either be going from a concrete account to disarray, or watching the threads of memory come together into a single story. The second
The New York TimesBusiness School Bookstores Find Growth as ‘Anchors of Authenticity’The New York Times - By ANDRIA CHENGOn a recent Sunday evening in the basement of McNally Jackson Independent Booksellers in New York’s Nolita neighborhood, some 40 people gathered in a 12-by-20-foot space surrounded by movable bookshelves
The New York TimesThe Arts For Fans of Ottessa Moshfegh, a Debut Novel of Female PsychosisThe New York Times - By ELIZABETH NICHOLASAdolescent girls operate under at least two pernicious mythologies: first, that the content of their lives is unserious (crushes! cosmetics! curfew!), and second, that there is a related cap on their to
The New York TimesMichael Bennet A Presidential Candidate Assesses the Nation’s Political IllsThe New York Times - By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTITHE LAND OF FLICKERING LIGHTS Restoring America in an Age of Broken Politics By Michael Bennet Michael Bennet is disappointed, and he’s running for president. In “The Land of Flickering Lights: Restoring
The New York TimesAmazon Web Services What Happens After Amazon’s Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers CluesThe New York Times - By DAVID STREITFELDSPERRYVILLE, Va. — “The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy” is a medical handbook that recommends the right amount of the right drug for treating ailments from bacterial pneumonia to infected wounds.
The New York TimesThe Arts The Week in BooksThe New York Times - By JOUMANA KHATIBWelcome to Sunday. Spend a little time with some of the best book reviews and features of the past week. July 20 marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, an event that has inspired
The New York TimesU.S. Politics How Supreme Court Nominations Became So PartisanThe New York Times - By EVAN THOMASCONFIRMATION BIAS Inside Washington’s War Over the Supreme Court, From Scalia’s Death to Justice Kavanaugh By Carl Hulse On Feb. 12, 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia died of a heart attack at a remote luxury
