Books & the Arts

Unfaithfulness (from Four Allegories of Love), 1575. Artist: Veronese, Paolo (1528-1588)

The Ardor of Tessa Hadley The Ardor of Tessa Hadley

Her novels are masterful domestic dramas that obsess over the mechanics of adultery and illicit passion.

May 25, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Sophie Haigney

The Long History of Resistance That Birthed Black Lives Matter

The Long History of Resistance That Birthed Black Lives Matter The Long History of Resistance That Birthed Black Lives Matter

A conversation with historian Donna Murch about the past, present, and future of Black radical organizing.

May 24, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques

Vivek Chibber

Vivek Chibber on the Future of Marxist Thought Vivek Chibber on the Future of Marxist Thought

His new book The Class Matrix: Social Theory After the Cultural Turn is an impassioned argument for centering class politics in both theory and praxis.

May 23, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

The Disastrous History of Rikers

The Disastrous History of Rikers The Disastrous History of Rikers

How a failed agenda of jail reform produced one of the country's most infamous penal colonies.

May 19, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Kay Gabriel

Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space

Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space Olga Ravn’s Office Novel in Space

The Employees offers a surreal and biting account of all the hazards and indignities of the contemporary workplace.

May 18, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Jessica Loudis

Stormy Sea Breaking on a Shore, by J.M.W. Turner

The Sea According to Rachel Carson The Sea According to Rachel Carson

Her first three books were odes to the world’s bodies of water and their creative power over all life forms.

May 17, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Hannah Gold

British colonials

The British Empire’s Worldwide Devastation The British Empire’s Worldwide Devastation

Caroline Elkins’s new history of the British Empire is a damning account of its violent crimes against its subjects. 

May 16, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Howard W. French

Nation Poetry

I Wake in the Dark I Wake in the Dark

I wake in the dark and reach out to snug you close and your arm comes free. It falls from your body like bread. Like wet rope. And my not yet wakened mind whispers, This is what i…

May 14, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Michael Bazzett

Florine Stettheimer, Insider Artist

Florine Stettheimer, Insider Artist Florine Stettheimer, Insider Artist

Barbara Bloemink’s biography paints a complicated picture of an artist whose work both celebrated and critiqued the upper echelons of early-20th-century cultural life.

May 12, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Max Pearl

The Whitney Biennial Isn’t As Bad as It Looks

The Whitney Biennial Isn’t As Bad as It Looks The Whitney Biennial Isn’t As Bad as It Looks

But it sure does make a poor first impression.

May 11, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

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