Robert W. Trogdon on Ernest Hemingway’s Paris years, “a magical time for modern literature”

Ron Hansen on the Western, a “distinctly American mythology”

Ruth Franklin on the novels of Shirley Jackson: “She never did the same thing twice”

New life of John Steinbeck reveals a writer “fueled by anger”

Sean Wilentz: Richard Hofstadter and the “paranoid style” as an American phenomenon

The Saddest Words: Michael Gorra on reading Faulkner now

Susan Ware: Race, region, and the full story of the fight for women’s suffrage

Love unknown: Thomas Travisano on the life and worlds of Elizabeth Bishop

Pete Hamill on A. J. Liebling: The Sweet Science and Other Writings

Monique Truong: Lafacadio Hearn’s wandering life as a search for home

Martin J. Sherwin: At his core, Jonathan Schell was a philosopher

American Conservatism: An “intellectual tradition worthy of respect and consideration”

Madison Smartt Bell on Robert Stone, restless chronicler of physical and moral extremity

Susan K. Harris: The round-the-world trip that made Mark Twain an anti-imperialist

For pleasure or as a spiritual discipline, bird-watching is “a lesson in respect and humility”

New “passion project” documentary Flannery reveals the writer who revealed mysteries