Books and Ideas

An airplane after taking off after sunrise, 2022.

The Marriage Plot From 50,000 Feet Above The Marriage Plot From 50,000 Feet Above

Kate Folks’s Sky Daddy pokes fun at the need for love at the core of most fiction—dramatizing one woman’s quest for romance through her very literal lust for airplanes.

Oct 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Laura Adamczyk

What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising?

What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising? What Connects the Paris Commune and the George Floyd Uprising?

A conversation with the writer and theorist Jasper Bernes about the left after the summer of 2020 and the state of revolutionary politics.

Oct 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Clinton Williamson

Ron Padgett, 1995.

The Immortal Poetry of Ron Padgett The Immortal Poetry of Ron Padgett

Pink Dust, a collection about aging and death, offers an optimistic vision of life as a continual act of reading.

Oct 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Rhian Sasseen

The Future of Magazines… and the World

The Future of Magazines… and the World The Future of Magazines… and the World

A conversation with Thomas Meaney, the editor of Granta, about literature and the left.

Oct 27, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

The author and his mother.

How My Grandmother Remembers the Nakba How My Grandmother Remembers the Nakba

In 1948, my family fled Palestine when Zionists took over. I pieced their story together from a box of letters and diary entries.

Oct 25, 2025 / Tareq Baconi

Nicolas Poussin’s “Landscape with a Calm,” 1650–51.

What T.J. Clark Sees  What T.J. Clark Sees 

His art criticism reaches rarified heights—combining style, rigor, and politics like almost no one else.

Oct 22, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

The February 2, 1985, article by Paul N. Edwards was illustrated by Randall Enos.

A Warning From the Past About the Dangers of AI A Warning From the Past About the Dangers of AI

As far back as 1958, Nation writers were grappling with the prospect of ‘artificial brains,’ particularly when placed in the hands of the military.

Oct 20, 2025 / Column / Richard Kreitner

Chester Himes’s Harlem Noirs

Chester Himes’s Harlem Noirs Chester Himes’s Harlem Noirs

Himes helped reinvent the idea of the detective novel. He also transformed it into a powerful vehicle for social criticism.

Oct 20, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Gene Seymour

Trump’s AI Deregulation Is His Oppenheimer Moment

Trump’s AI Deregulation Is His Oppenheimer Moment Trump’s AI Deregulation Is His Oppenheimer Moment

He has chosen to unleash a powerful and potentially cataclysmic new technology on the world with no regard for consequences.

Oct 20, 2025 / Feature / Michael T. Klare

Rico Nasty backstage at Knitting Factory, 2018.

The Sonic Risks of PUP and Rico Nasty The Sonic Risks of PUP and Rico Nasty

On their new albums, the punk rockers and rapper break all the rules.

Oct 16, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Bijan Stephen

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