Volume 66, Number 18 (2019-11-21)

Fred Kaplan

The Defeat of General Mattis

As Clemenceau said, “War is too important to be left to the generals.” So is running the Department of Defense.

Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead

by Jim Mattis and Bing West

Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis

by Guy M. Snodgrass

Frederick Seidel

The Same, But Different

Cathleen Schine’s brilliantly funny new novel ‘The Grammarians’

The Grammarians

by Cathleen Schine

Emily Raboteau

Lessons in Survival

The water is rising, and sooner or later we’ll have to move inland.

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

by Elizabeth Rush

The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America’s Coasts

by Gilbert M. Gaul

Jonathan Stevenson

What is striking about Porgy and Bess in performance is how much freedom Gershwin’s music allows for the exploration of character. It gives space for unanticipated revelation, just as it allows a flexibility of approach.

Porgy and Bess

an opera by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, September 23, 2019–February 1, 2020

Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music

by Richard Crawford

Ariel Dorfman

The Liar’s Truth

The Impostor: A True Story

by Javier Cercas, translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne

Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940–2015

by Sara J. Brenneis

Elizabeth Bruenig

Jesus, Mary, and Mary

‘Virgin Whore’ by Emma Maggie Solberg and ‘The Magdalene in the Reformation’ by Margaret Arnold

Virgin Whore

by Emma Maggie Solberg

The Magdalene in the Reformation

by Margaret Arnold

Tim Flannery

Man’s Biggest Friend

The origins of the elephant–human relationship date back into prehistory.

Giants of the Monsoon Forest: Living and Working with Elephants

by Jacob Shell

Richard Sieburth

Lacustrine

a poem

Ange Mlinko

Acts of Extreme Attention

Karen Solie, the consummate poet of the Trans-Canadian Highway, has taken an evolutionary leap with her recent poetry, trading comedy for sublime beauty.

The Caiplie Caves

by Karen Solie

J.H. Elliott