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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 historian admits he denounced rivals anonymously on the internet.

April 19, 2010

 A new participatory documentary captures the excitement of Obama's election.

March 10, 2010

Since my poker buddy John Heilemann was good enough to drop off a copy of his embargoed book,

 

January 12, 2010