Books & the Arts
Barry Jenkins’s American Saga
In The Underground Railroad, Jenkins focuses how people survived slavery rather than on its brutality.
Stephen KearseWhere Would We Be Without the New Deal?
A new history charts the forgotten ways the social politics of the Roosevelt years transformed the United States.
Michael KazinWhat Happened to Andrew Cuomo?
Ross Barkan’s The Prince tracks how the son of a progressive New York governor transformed into one focused on one thing above all else: power.
Raina LipsitzFrom the Magazine
Why Do We Eat Bad Food?
Mark Bittman’s new history looks at the economy and politics of junk food.
Bill McKibben
Brandon Taylor’s Potlucks and Parties
In his new collection of short stories, the Booker-Prize nominated novelist explores the desires and discontents of people living in small university towns.
Jennifer Wilson
The Movement President
Did Ronald Reagan help launch a movement—or did a set of movements help launch him?
Thomas MeaneyB&A Newsletter
Literary Criticism
Richard Wright’s Lost Novel
In The Man Who Lived Underground, Wright offers a gothic tale of police violence and urban surrealism.
Elias Rodriques
Graham Greene’s God
As a new biography shows, the British novelist was always haunted by, and uncertain about, his own faith.
John Banville
Diane Johnson’s Homecoming
In her new novel, the novelist returns to the United States to offer a self-conscious story of American fragmentation.
Becca RothfeldHistory & Politics
Ami Ayalon’s Political Journey
In Friendly Fire, the former Shin Bet director offers two narratives—one of the story that Israel tells the world, the other of the story Israel tries not to tell the world.
Raja Shehadeh
The Gilded Age’s Democratic Contradictions
A new history examines how the late 19th century’s raucous party system gave way to a more sedate and exclusionary political culture that erected more and more barriers to participation.
Eric Foner
Telling the Story of Undocumented America
Using both journalism and visionary vignettes, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio examines undocumented life in contemporary United States.
Gaiutra BahadurPolitics
The Untold History of Freedom
A new book charts the tension between individual and collective notions of liberty.
Tyler StovallOne of the more contentious issues to emerge during America’s Covid-19 crisis concerns the wearing of face masks. Heralded by public health experts as a vital way to halt the spread of the disease, masks have also been attacked by conservatives as unwarranted restrictions on personal freedom. Donald Trump, who… Continue Reading >
Television and Films
The Surreal Pleasures of ‘The Masked Singer’
By discarding all the tropes of standard reality TV, this singing competition allows viewers to revel in pure weirdness.
Erin Schwartz
The Unfinished Evolution of Aziz Ansari
With the latest season of Master of None, the comedian and director’s attempt at a reboot of his creative approach reveals the limits of his perspective.
Vikram Murthi
The Triumph of ‘Céline and Julie Go Boating’
Why Jacques Rivette’s 1974 film of female friendship and surrealism remains a masterpiece.
Kristen Yoonsoo KimFiction
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Quietly Bracing New Novel
How writing in Italian gave Lahiri a new sense of creative freedom.
Jennifer WilsonThe protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies,” the title story in her 1999 debut short story collection, is a multilingual tour guide named Mr. Kapasi who speaks, to varying degrees, English, French, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Gujarati, and Italian. One day, he drives a young Indian American couple… Continue Reading >
Poems
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May 21, 2019
Mange Meat
Alicia Mountain -
May 21, 2019
Twenty-First Century Woman / Ankle-Length Cardigans / Looking in the Mirror
Amanda Nadelberg -
April 23, 2019
Dear Melissa—
TC Tolbert -
April 23, 2019
Love Prodigal
Traci Brimhall
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What the Harlem Cultural Festival Represented
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Barry Jenkins’s American Saga
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In My Own Private Utopia, There Is No Rain—or Republicans
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Annette Gordon-Reed’s Personal History of Juneteenth
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Joan Didion’s Long View
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The Misplaced Hope of Understanding Police From the Inside
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Undanced Dances During a Pandemic
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The Coronavirus Means Curtains for Artists
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Dismantling Transphobia at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
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Jeremy Cooper’s Art of Ambiguities
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The Novel Solutions of Utopian Fiction
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Which Is the More Prescient Dystopia? ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Parable of the Sower’
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What the Harlem Cultural Festival Represented
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Barry Jenkins’s American Saga
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Which Is the More Prescient Dystopia? ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Parable of the Sower’
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Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon
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A Year Lived Inside With Instagram and a Dutch Master
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Is It Time to Abolish Museums?
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How the Pandemic Made It Harder to Become a Doctor
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Building the Prison-to-College Pipeline
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Universities Are Slashing Faculties and Blaming Covid
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Why We Need a New Federal Writers’ Project
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Did ‘Cancel Culture’ Drive Richard Wright Underground?
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Hello, Poetry, You ‘Lamenting Pleasure’
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Will the Public Internet Survive?
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Máirtín Ó Cadhain: Found in Translation
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Tony Tulathimutte’s Worst-Case Scenarios