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Democracy’s Afterlife

Trump, the GOP, and the rise of zombie politics.

‘Something Resembling Normal Life’

Paek Nam-nyong’s ‘Friend’ tells ordinary stories of love and divorce in 1980s North Korea.

Friend: A Novel from North Korea

by Paek Nam-nyong, translated from the Korean by Immanuel Kim


Suffering, Unfaltering Manet

Even in ill health, the painter continued to shock his audience.

Manet and Modern Beauty: The Artist’s Last Years

an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, May 26–September 8, 2019; and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, October 8, 2019–January 12, 2020


Criminalizing a Constitutional Right

For many Americans, Roe v. Wade might as well have been overturned already.

The Sense of an Ending

On Don DeLillo’s late style.

The Silence

by Don DeLillo


A New Assault on Marriage Equality

A case before the Supreme Court tests whether its conservative justices will violate their long-standing constitutional principles in order to expand religious liberty.

The Dream of Pure Expression

A new translation of Paul Valéry’s poems also includes rousing extracts from his extraordinary notebooks.

The Idea of Perfection: The Poetry and Prose of Paul Valéry

a bilingual edition translated from the French by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody


Cartographers of Stone and Air

On Tim Robinson’s intensely focused survey of a small patch of the Irish landscape and Lyall Watson’s sweeping inquiry into the mysteries and mysticism of wind.

Listening to the Wind: The Connemara Trilogy: Part One

by Tim Robinson, with an introduction by Daniel Slager

Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind

by Lyall Watson, with an introduction by Nick Hunt


An Undisappearing Act

Diane Johnson’s restitutionary biography brings George Meredith’s first wife out of his shadow.

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith: And Other Lesser Lives

by Diane Johnson, with an introduction by Vivian Gornick


In the Soup

Tracing the research into the earliest beginnings of life on earth.

The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth

by Michael Marshall


Making London Their Own

A new book traces the multitudinous contributions of migrants to the capital, as well as their persistent exploitation.

Migrant City: A New History of London

by Panikos Panayi


The Power Brokers

A recent history centers the Lakota and the vast territory they controlled in the story of the formation of the United States.

Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power

by Pekka Hämäläinen


Dudes Without Heirs

Maria Headley translates ‘Beowulf,’ a story in which women make the world, and men make their legends by destroying it.

Beowulf

translated from the Old English by Maria Dahvana Headley


The Devil Had Nothing to Do With It

“Robert Johnson was one of the most inventive geniuses of all time,” wrote Bob Dylan. “We still haven’t caught up with him.”

Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson

by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow

Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson

by Annye C. Anderson with Preston Lauterbach, and with a foreword by Elijah Wald

Love in Vain: Robert Johnson, 1911–1938

by Mezzo and J.M. Dupont, translated from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger


Songs of Loss and Reinvention

Learning from the knowledge migrants and exiles have accumulated across the centuries.

The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns

edited and with an introduction by Dohra Ahmad and a foreword by Edwidge Danticat


Getting Away With Murder

It’s time to start prosecuting executives for crimes they commit on behalf of their companies.

Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Crisis of Underenforcement

by John C. Coffee Jr.


Life, Death, and the Levys

A new book traces the twentieth-century scattering of a Sephardic family through five continents.

Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century

by Sarah Abrevaya Stein


Bolivia’s Tarnished Savior

Revisiting Evo Morales’s achievements and flaws as his party returns to power.

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