The Sheltering Shy The Sheltering Shy
Satirist Alan Bennett's Untold Stories is a packed suitcase of a book by one of Britain's finest writers, exploring the ra
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Thomson
High Culture, Low Politics High Culture, Low Politics
In The Seduction of Culture in German History, Wolf Lepenies reflects on shifting manifestations of German philosophy and culture and considers the lessons they offer for Europe an...
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Andreas Huyssen
The Body Artist The Body Artist
Two biographies of Thomas Eakins reveal the art world's attitudes about the painter's bodily obsessions: Was he a curious innocent, a brilliant anatomist or a dirty old man?
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Peter Plagens
For Reasons of State For Reasons of State
Two new books on the French Revolution examine Robespierre's role in advocating terror as an instrument of government, raising compelling questions about state-sponsored terror in ...
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Lynn Hunt
The Composer’s Craft The Composer’s Craft
In Stravinsky, the Second Exile, Stephen Walsh chronicles the composer's late years, disentangling the realities of his life and work from the published assertions of a self-servin...
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Paul Mitchinson
Love in the Ruins Love in the Ruins
Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, published fifty-two years after she perished at Auschwitz, offers an unsparing critique of France under the German occupati...
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Alice Kaplan
Dead Man Dead Man
Philip Roth's Everyman is a contemporary morality play that explores the author's obsessions with health and virility, ecstasy and betrayal, and the certainty and solitude of death...
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
Laughter in the Dark Laughter in the Dark
New translations of novels by exiled authors Roberto Bolaño and Ismail Kadare explore the bloody crossroads where literature, politics and self-absorption converge.
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / John Banville
Three Liberal Lives Three Liberal Lives
In praise of three giants of American liberalism: John Kenneth Galbraith, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.
May 11, 2006 / Column / Eric Alterman
Yumi, Yumi, Yumi Yumi, Yumi, Yumi
Why is it that We the People are so obsessed with whether singing our national anthem in Spanish is an affront to our union?
May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams