Mindy Aloff: “Most writers . . . are fascinated by dancing”
Four books—and a flawed Everyman—that made John Updike’s name as a novelist
The War Before the War: Andrew Delbanco on fugitive slaves and the fragility of the American Republic
From “lovelorn, insecure young man” to resolute commander—the private side of Ulysses S. Grant
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom recasts the life of one of our major literary figures
Leonard S. Marcus on Madeleine L’Engle, the “fearless experimenter” of children’s literature
The first rule of Fight Club: Violence in Congress and the road to civil war
“Monsters lurk everywhere”: Sarah Weinman uncovers the real-life crime behind Nabokov’s Lolita
Lisa Yaszek: We get the history of women in science fiction “thoroughly wrong”
Terrence Rafferty: Elmore Leonard’s West is “an idea of the West”
The novels and poetry of Albert Murray: “He is beyond category”
New biography of Madeleine L’Engle by her granddaughters is a “journey of becoming”
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the “iconic piece of literature” that changed the way we think of the world
Michelle Dean’s Sharp celebrates ten women writers who did it their way
J. Michael Lennon: Norman Mailer “recognized the permanent cleft in the American character”
Sportswriter Alexander Wolff: “Basketball becomes a way of working through things”
