Satire and Shtick Against a Backdrop of ‘Glorious Dust’
A mother and daughter wade through the loss of father and son in Olja Savičević’s bleakly bizarre novel Adios, Cowboy.
Book Review
Finding the ‘Beautifully Chaotic’ in Grief
Max Porter’s debut novel careens between mocking hilarity and heartbreaking sorrow.
The Destructive Legacy of Housing Segregation
Less visible than the rise of income inequality in America is its impact in shaping the country’s urban neighborhoods. Two books—by Matthew Desmond and Mitchell Duneier—could help change that.
Genes Are Overrated
Their discovery wasn’t predestined, nor do they dictate our destinies—and current ideas about them may die.
The Brontës’ Secret
The sisters turned domestic constraints into grist for brilliant books.
The Greatest Poet Alive
The feral genius of Australia’s Les Murray
A Dark Collage of Fear and Beauty
A short book review of The Fox Was Ever the Hunter
How Animals Think
A new look at what humans can learn from nonhuman minds
Death and Don DeLillo
In his 17th novel, life is preserved by cryonic freezing while the apocalypse looms.
What Prison Takes Away
The oldest known incarceration memoir by an African American indicts a system that destroys souls.