November 3, 2022 issue

Sigrid Nunez

Gored in the Afternoon

Annie Ernaux, the 2022 Nobel Literature laureate, has published a diary of a sublime love affair—both a quest for self-awareness and a desire to escape the self—in which she traces a familiar arc of loss.

Getting Lost

by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer

Bill Keller

Reform or Abolish?

American prisons are often unjust, inhumane, and ineffective at protecting public safety. Mariame Kaba and Ruth Wilson Gilmore believe they should be eliminated entirely.

We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

by Mariame Kaba, edited by Tamara K. Nopper and with a foreword by Naomi Murakawa

Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation

by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, edited by Brenna Bhandar and Alberto Toscano

Daria Serenko,
Eugene Ostashevsky

The Bridegrooms

a poem

Giles Harvey

The History Boy

Unlike other recent novels that reckon with the latest news, Ian McEwan’s Lessons is built to withstand the constant onslaught of information.

Lessons

by Ian McEwan

Brenda Wineapple

Living in Words

A new biography explores the life and work of the influential abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, who wrote prodigiously about the social, political, and cultural issues of her time.

Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life

by Lydia Moland

John Banville

‘A God Can Do It’

For Rilke, the artist’s task is to absorb the realm of things and thereby transform it into something rich and strange.

Rilke: The Last Inward Man

by Lesley Chamberlain

Kathryn Hughes

Department of Speculation

A new book on the history of a group of British clairvoyants charged with predicting disasters maintains a scrupulous neutrality as to whether these precognitions were coincidences or supernatural happenings.

The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold

by Sam Knight

Jane Hirshfield

Two Kerosene Lanterns

a poem

James Gleick

Space-Age Magus

From beginning to end, experts saw through Buckminster Fuller’s ideas and theories. Why did so many people come under his spell?

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller

by Alec Nevala-Lee

Robyn Creswell

Then What Happened?

Yasmine Seale’s new translation of The Thousand and One Nights has a texture—tight, smooth, skillfully patterned—that make previous versions seem either garish or slightly dull by comparison.

The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1,001 Nights

translated from the Arabic by Yasmine Seale, edited and with an introduction and notes by Paulo Lemos Horta

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The Limits of Press Power

To what extent did newspapers influence public opinion in the US and Britain before and during World War II?

The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler

by Kathryn S. Olmsted

The Media Offensive: How the Press and Public Opinion Shaped Allied Strategy During World War II

by Alexander G. Lovelace

Francine Prose

‘We Know What That’s Like’

The filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s recent arrest in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison marks the latest phase in a campaign that the Iranian judiciary has been waging against him for over a decade.

No Bears

a film written and directed by Jafar Panahi

Jed S. Rakoff

A Prisoner of His Own Restraint

Felix Frankfurter was renowned as a liberal lawyer and advocate. Why did he turn out to be such a conservative Supreme Court justice?

Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment

by Brad Snyder

Merve Emre

The Illusion of the First Person

A historical survey of the personal essay shows it to be the purest expression of the lie that individual subjectivity exists prior to the social formations that gave rise to it.