Volume 68, Number 4 (2021-03-11)

Anne Enright

Spirited Away

What is the spark that makes a shared God not just real, but so present he talks back to you?

How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others

by T.M. Luhrmann

Angels and Saints

by Eliot Weinberger, with a guide to the illustrations by Mary Wellesley

Sanford Schwartz

A Painter’s Performances

In Frank Auerbach’s paintings, we can see the mysterious and often ferocious bouts he seemed to have with his materials.

Frank Auerbach: Selected Works, 1978–2016

an exhibition at Luhring Augustine Chelsea, New York City, October 31, 2020–February 20, 2021

Brandon M. Terry

What Dignity Demands

A new book persuasively places Malcolm X and Martin Luther King at the center of each other’s most dramatic transformations.

The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

by Peniel E. Joseph

Ruth Bernard Yeazell

A Vermeer for the IRA

Rose Dugdale, famous for a 1974 art heist, would probably rather be remembered as a heroine of Irish republicanism.

The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist

by Anthony M. Amore

Peter C. Baker

The Bloodhound

A distinct thread of anger runs through all of Nicholson Baker’s work: anger at what people with power get up to in the shadows, anger at how they lie about it, anger at how we forget.

Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act

by Nicholson Baker

Jenny Uglow

The Reader of Rocks

William Smith’s innovative use of the fossil record helped him create the first detailed geological map of England, Wales, and Scotland.

Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps

with a foreword by Robert Macfarlane and an introduction by Douglas Palmer

Tim Parks

Characters in Search of a Conflict

The life of the Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello, like those of his characters, oscillated between pathos and beffa: ironic, unexpected, crushing reversal.

Stories for the Years

by Luigi Pirandello, translated from the Italian by Virginia Jewiss

Helen Epstein

The Truth About Museveni’s Crimes

Despite Western claims that he brought peace to Uganda after years of violence under his predecessors, his regime has been bloody from the start.

How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond

by Janet I. Lewis

Larry Wolff

Phantasms of the Opera

The invention of gas illumination offered operagoers in the mid-nineteenth century “a completely new experience of light” that reshaped operatic composition and performance.

Grand Illusion: Phantasmagoria in Nineteenth-Century Opera

by Gabriela Cruz

Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera

by Gundula Kreuzer

Colin Thubron

Escape from Fortress Crete

Patrick Leigh Fermor kidnapped a German general in the mountains of Greece during World War II. Was it worth it?

Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation in Crete

by Patrick Leigh Fermor, with a foreword by Roderick Bailey

The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation

by George Psychoundakis, translated from the Greek and with an introduction by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure

by Artemis Cooper

Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor

selected and edited by Adam Sisman

More Dashing: Further Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor

selected and edited by Adam Sisman

Jessica Riskin

When Engineers Were Humanists

During the Renaissance, mechanical inventions served as a medium for experimental thinking about all aspects of the cosmos.

The Italian Renaissance of Machines

by Paolo Galluzzi, translated from the Italian by Jonathan Mandelbaum

Renaissance Invention: Stradanus’s Nova Reperta

an exhibition at the Newberry, Chicago, August 28–November 19, 2020

Katie Peterson

Fog

a poem

T.H. Breen

How Did the Colonies Unite?

The drive for American independence coalesced in only a few years of rapidly accelerating political change.

1774: The Long Year of Revolution

by Mary Beth Norton

Gregory Hays

Tune Out & Lean In

The recent revival of Stoic philosophy has stayed surprisingly true to its ancient roots while gaining popularity among executives and tech-bros.

That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic

by Musonius Rufus, translated from the Greek by Cora E. Lutz, with an introduction by Gretchen Reydams-Schils

How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management

by Seneca, selected, translated from the Latin, and with an introduction by James Romm

How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life

by Epictetus, translated from the Greek and with an introduction by A.A. Long

The Pocket Stoic

by John Sellars

Stillness Is the Key

by Ryan Holiday

Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age

by Donna Zuckerberg

See all reviewed works

See less

Katie Peterson

Fog

a poem

Letters

Matthew Kipnis,
Jackson Lears

Democracy’s Genuine Crisis

H.C. Erik Midelfort,
Gavin Francis