J. M. Coetzee’s Unsettling Trilogy About a Possibly Divine Boy
The novelist asks how we recognize the truth when it enters the world.
Book Review
Why Birds Do What They Do
The more humans understand about their behavior, the more inaccessible their world seems.
A Pandemic Novel That’s Oddly Soothing
Lawrence Wright’s The End of October has been heavily touted for its prescience, but the one thing it didn’t anticipate is heartening.
You Will Never Be Forgotten Explores Grief in a Near-Future World
Mary South’s stories of loss are deft parables about the false protection of machines. They also feel particularly apt right now.
A Novelist’s Ambition to Define America
Robert Stone set out to capture the national condition in fiction, a goal that’s more relevant than ever.
What Alexander Calder Understood About Joy
America’s greatest sculptor gave objects a playful life of their own.
The People Who Profited Off the Trail of Tears
The deportation of Native Americans westward in the 1830s was fueled by busy bankers and unchecked avarice.
Capitalism’s Favorite Drug
The dark history of how coffee took over the world
An Epic Novel Haunted by the Ghosts of Colonialism
In Maisy Card’s vivid debut, These Ghosts Are Family, spirits expose long-held secrets within fractured families and nations alike.
The Claustrophobic Menace of Boarding-School Fiction
Two recent novels cannily use all-girls-campus settings to create worlds that feel women-focused but prove to be the reverse.