Books and Ideas

Trump Reveals His Real Reason for Having Suleimani Killed

Trump Reveals His Real Reason for Having Suleimani Killed Trump Reveals His Real Reason for Having Suleimani Killed

“Trump, former aides said, has burned with a desire to erase Obama’s foreign policy legacy and prove himself a superior Commander-in-Chief.” —The Washington Post I couldn’t abide o…

Jan 14, 2020 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Letters Icon

Letters From the January 27, 2020, Issue Letters From the January 27, 2020, Issue

Old struggle, new politics… For shame… The truth about these truths… The collective is political…

Jan 14, 2020 / Our Readers

The Journalism of Gabriel García Márquez

The Journalism of Gabriel García Márquez The Journalism of Gabriel García Márquez

His fiction and nonfiction can be seen as facets of a single, lifelong narrative enterprise.

Jan 13, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Tony Wood

Berlin Wall

The ‘Revolution of ’89’ Did Not Initiate a New Era of History The ‘Revolution of ’89’ Did Not Initiate a New Era of History

Though significant, the end of the Cold War ranks well below the fall of Russia’s Romanov dynasty (1917) or the discovery of penicillin (1928) as a turning point in the history of ...

Jan 13, 2020 / Andrew J. Bacevich

The Letters Behind One of American Poetry’s Most Infamous Books

The Letters Behind One of American Poetry’s Most Infamous Books The Letters Behind One of American Poetry’s Most Infamous Books

The Dolphin Letters, 1970–1979, which collects the correspondence between Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, is an extraordinary philosophical inquiry into what is permissible i...

Jan 8, 2020 / Dustin Illingworth

Eka Kurniawan’s Disorienting ‘Kitchen Curse’ Is a Punk Critique of Colonialism

Eka Kurniawan’s Disorienting ‘Kitchen Curse’ Is a Punk Critique of Colonialism Eka Kurniawan’s Disorienting ‘Kitchen Curse’ Is a Punk Critique of Colonialism

The Indonesian writer’s short story collection tells tales of hope and disappointment from Reformasi, the period following the ouster of the country's dictator Suharto.

Jan 7, 2020 / Noah Flora

Tiki Bar

The Tiki Bar Resurgence of the Trump Era The Tiki Bar Resurgence of the Trump Era

It’s tacky and willfully inauthentic. Of course it’s popular again.

Jan 6, 2020 / Jackson Arn

Rewriting Roman Myths From the Perspective of Their Victims

Rewriting Roman Myths From the Perspective of Their Victims Rewriting Roman Myths From the Perspective of Their Victims

Nina MacLaughlin reimagines Metamorphoses from the perspective of the women in the text, exploring sexual violence, agency, and power dynamics of all kinds.

Jan 6, 2020 / Sophie Haigney

The Bitter (Occasionally Brave) Legacy of Selling Blackness

The Bitter (Occasionally Brave) Legacy of Selling Blackness The Bitter (Occasionally Brave) Legacy of Selling Blackness

Brenna Wynn Greer’s Represented tells the story of black civil-rights-era entrepreneurs who coaxed American corporations to cater to black people—for better or for worse.

Jan 2, 2020 / Aaron Ross Coleman

How Chemists, Chinese Factories, and ‘Dark Web’ Dealers Spread Fentanyl Across the US

How Chemists, Chinese Factories, and ‘Dark Web’ Dealers Spread Fentanyl Across the US How Chemists, Chinese Factories, and ‘Dark Web’ Dealers Spread Fentanyl Across the US

Ben Westhoff’s Fentanyl, Inc. is one of the first books to address what the Centers for Disease Control has called the “third wave” of the opioid crisis.

Dec 30, 2019 / Daniel Kolitz

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