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Nikolai Leskov’s The Enchanted Wandered and Other Stories; Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself

A history of how risk management profits from manufacturing new forms of uncertainty and insecurity.

The Book of My Lives, Aleksandar Hemon, Sarajevo, Radovan Karadzic,

How did everything a writer had known and loved come violently apart?

No one dies for poetry anymore, not even in Russia. Enter the oligarchs, who steer clear of Putin’s ire by sponsoring literary prizes.

Illustration for My So-Called "Post-Feminist" Literary Life

Slut-shaming, name-calling and no respect: welcome to life in literary America for a 21st century female author.

Engraving depicting Athanasius Kircher

How did a man who got so many things wrong become an intellectual celebrity in his own lifetime?

An unreliable anthropologist of traditional societies is a no less dubious diagnostician of the contemporary world.

Blogs

A new book takes exciting and historic trends a step too far.

March 23, 2012

A new book shows that the HIV virus was triggered by wanton imperial depredations.

February 28, 2012

How does the movie The Help "photoshop" American history?

February 27, 2012

Romney misattributed the key quote of his Florida victory speech to the pamphleteer. But that's hardly the only reason why Paine would have decried the Bain Capitalist.

February 1, 2012

Will the new president's mega-million-dollar makeover of the main library scare off scholars and leave the branches begging?

December 6, 2011

If the great Hiroshima novel remains unwritten, a number of major poets have written brilliantly on nuclear concerns.

August 16, 2011

There's rarely been as enjoyable and community-minded a way to help support children's literacy.

July 12, 2011

 Who gives a [insert expletive] about an Oxford comma?

July 11, 2011

Ahmed Chalabi’s daughter recounts the family’s saga and the ancien regime.

March 7, 2011