Books & the Arts

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s “Zion, Her Mother Shea, and Her Grandfather Mr. Smiley Riding on Their Tennessee Walking Horses, Mares, P.T. (P.T.’s Miss One of a Kind), Dolly (Secretly), and Blue (Blue’s Royal Threat), Newton, Mississippi.”

LaToya Ruby Frazier Rewrites the Rules of Documentary Photography LaToya Ruby Frazier Rewrites the Rules of Documentary Photography

A new career survey at the MoMA is a perfect illustration of the photographer's mission: to reframe how viewers see the working-class and low-income people whom she counts as kin....

Jul 3, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jillian Steinhauer

Harriet Tubman in 1868 or 1869.

The Many Lives of Harriet Tubman The Many Lives of Harriet Tubman

Tiya Miles’s Night Flyer is a landmark biography of one of 19th-century America’s most important figures. 

Jul 2, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Kellie Carter Jackson

A certificate for a volunteer serving in the Union army.

Can the Constitution Save Us? Can the Constitution Save Us?

The Constitution is often invoked as a safeguard for American democracy, but does it more often get in democracy’s way?

Jul 2, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jedediah Britton-Purdy

Taylor Swift, Poet

Taylor Swift, Poet Taylor Swift, Poet

Country singer, globetrotting pop star, and now melancholic poet—Taylor Swift has offered her listeners almost everything.

Jul 1, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Stephanie Burt

The Man Hồ Chí Minh Once Was

The Man Hồ Chí Minh Once Was The Man Hồ Chí Minh Once Was

Joseph Andras's novel on the Vietnamese revolutionary's salad days in Paris imagines how a young radical became an icon.

Jun 27, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Terry Nguyễn

Elfriede Jelinek, 1986.

Down in the Dirt With Elfriede Jelinek Down in the Dirt With Elfriede Jelinek

A long awaited English translation of her shocking magnum opus, The Children of the Dead, asks its readers to look at the violent history buried just beneath their feet.

Jun 26, 2024 / Books & the Arts / John Semley

New York City police officers preparing to enter Columbia University's Hamilton Hall, 2024.

A Fantasy of Post-Generational Politics A Fantasy of Post-Generational Politics

A recent book argues that reordering the stages of work and life—including retirement—could eradicate conflicts between generations, while ignoring the real issues that divide us....

Jun 25, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Julian Epp

Time, Space, and Annie Baker

Time, Space, and Annie Baker Time, Space, and Annie Baker

The playwright's remarkable debut film, Janet Planet, immerses the viewer in the sounds and sorrow of a middle-schooler's endless summer.

Jun 24, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Nora Caplan-Bricker

Christopher Bollen’s Cairo Thriller

Christopher Bollen’s Cairo Thriller Christopher Bollen’s Cairo Thriller

The Lost Americans captures the atmosphere of paranoia and surveillance in the years since 2013.

Jun 20, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Hussein Omar

Thousands of truck-sized 30-ton shipping containers are stacked aboard the Hanjin Oslo freighter in the Port of Los Angeles, 2020.

Who Really Suffers When the Supply Chain Is in Crisis? Who Really Suffers When the Supply Chain Is in Crisis?

Peter S. Goodman’s recent book on the pandemic’s effect on global rhythms of supply and demand tries to answer why “the world ran out of everything.”

Jun 18, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Brett Christophers

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