Joseph Campbell’s Woman Problem
In the writer’s classic study of world myths, women were in the background. A new book aims to change that.
Book Review
Welcome to the Afterparty of the American Dream
Anthony Veasna So’s electric story collection sketches a world where the lights are dimmer, the truths blurrier, the hangover incoming.
Robin DiAngelo and the Problem With Anti-racist Self-Help
What two new books reveal about the white progressive pursuit of racial virtue
A Better Way to Look at Trees
What pioneering new research has revealed about the forest
Edgar Allan Poe’s Other Obsession
Known as a master of horror, he also understood the power—and the limits—of science.
We Choose Our Cults Every Day
Cultish, a new book by the linguist Amanda Montell, reveals how insidery language informs the communities of modern life.
The Logic of the Filing Cabinet Is Everywhere
A captivating new history helps us see the humble appliance’s sweeping influence on modern life.
The Bleak Prescience of Richard Wright
A previously unpublished novel invites a reassessment of a writer criticized for his doctrinaire pessimism about race in America.
The Opportunists
In Louis Menand’s monumental new study of Cold War culture, success owes less to vision and purpose than to self-promotion.
Women Refusing to Be Like Other Women
New novels by Rachel Cusk and Jhumpa Lahiri explore the liberating power of isolation.