Book Review: A Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri
/A new translation of a virtually-unknown gem: the writings of a French trapper, trader, and voyageur in the rough and beautiful wilds of the American frontier of his day.
Read MoreBook Review: Leonardo Da Vinci
/Bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson adds another massive tome to the pile of those devoted to the quintessential Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci.
Read MoreBook Review: The Big Book of Rogues and Villains
/The latest enormous anthology from Otto Penzler features the dandies of the demimonde, the stylish thieves and ruthless killers of popular fiction.
Read MorePassing the Torch in the Penny Press
/This moment was bound to happen. It’s been approaching steadily for years, of course, and its tread has been especially audible in the last few months. But lots of other reading gets in the way, and the torrent of books never lessens, and it was easy to get distracted. But then the moment comes: the […]
Read MoreBook Review: Stalin - Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
/Stephen Kotkin's groundbreaking multi-volume biography of Stalin continues with the uneasy alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Read MoreBook Review: Russia in Flames
/A big, lively new history assesses the troubled life and blighted nature of Bolshevism.
Read MorePenguins on Parade: Picnic at Hanging Rock!
/Some Penguin Classics serve as enjoyable reminders that more things in Heaven and Earth fall under the heading of “classic” than the usual lineup of Dickens and Austen. Penguin has always been good about this, and in the last twenty years or so they’ve improved even on their own track record, sometimes with questionable results […]
Read MoreBook Review: Vanguard of the Revolution
/The grand, global history of Communism's century-long reign of terror is the subject of A. James McAdams' authoritative new book.
Read MoreBook Review: Adults in the Room
/Former finance minister for Greece Yanis Varoufakis has written a book about his time on the world stage during his country's financial crisis.
Read MoreAlex Rider: Never Say Die!
/Our book today is a sweet bit of sweaty, skate-boarding adolescent relief: Alex Rider: Never Say Die, which represents the long-awaited return of writer Anthony Horowitz to writing the adventures of his signature creation, “the world’s greatest teen spy,” Alex Rider – who, we’re told, is 14, 5 foot nine inches in height, brown-eyed, and […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Meaning of Belief
/The gap between the religious and the "New Atheists" seems wider than ever - but have both sides failed even to understand each other? A pocket-sized new book examines some of the oldest questions of all.
Read MoreMythology’s 75th Anniversary!
/Our book today is the kind of lavish surprise that occasionally rewards the faithful: a big, heavy, ornate new 75th-anniversary edition from Black Dog & Leventhal of Edith Hamilton’s rock-solid, endurably reprinted classic Mythology. Subtitled “Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes,” the book retails all the most famous stories from Greek and Roman mythology (with […]
Read MoreBook Review: The New Testament
/A new translation of the New Testament strips away the baroque filigree and presents the raw, jumbled voices of the original.
Read MoreA Precedent Whilst the World Stands
/In addition to the pageantry, marital eccentricities, and political fireworks, the Tudors were also industrious religious persecutors. As "A Year with the Tudors" continues, a vivid new book tells the stories of the martyrs burned by Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I.
Read MoreBook Review: James Conant, Warrior Scientist
/US weapons-making scientist in two world wars and a path-making president of Harvard James Conant gets a generous biography, written by his granddaughter.
Read MoreTreat!
/Our book today is exactly as advertised: Treat!, a collection of incredible photos by Christian Vieler of dozens of dogs, each caught in the act moment of lunging for a thrown treat. It’s an inspired idea along the lines of Seth Casteel’s best-selling Underwater Dogs, and its inspiration rests on the same elements: not only […]
Read MorePenguins on Parade: Great Expectations!
/Our book today is certainly a visual treat: it’s the new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens with deckle edges, French flaps, and an eye-catching wrap-around cover by Tom Haugomat, who faithfully signposts the novel’s most famous imagery: a boy in a graveyard, figures in a boat, sooty London, etc. This […]
Read MoreThe Final Score!
/Our book today is a romance novel revolving around the US football season and so by rights ought to feel like an autumn book. But Jaci Burton’s The Final Score, one of Burton’s “Play-by-Play” sports romances, features a Claudio Marinesco cover and enough hot-and-heavy bedroom action to make it a last-day-of-summer reading experience. The basic […]
Read MorePenguins on Parade: The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers
/Some Penguin Classics, as we’ve noticed on rare occasions in the past, are quietly awe-inspiring, and this certainly applies to a new addition to the line, The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers, edited by Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates, who also write the volume’s introductory essay. The Penguin Portables are always highlights of […]
Read MoreDinosaur Empire!
/Our book today has a front cover positively festooned with possible titles, and no referee standing close at hand to declare one the winner. There’s a banner at the top that says “Earth Before Us.” Then right in the center in big green letters there’s Dinosaur Empire! And down at the bottom there’s a label-looking […]
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