April 4, 2024 Issue

Erin Maglaque

Wings of Desire

A gullible new book raises the question of how we should interpret the history of the supernatural in early modernity.

They Flew: A History of the Impossible

by Carlos M.N. Eire

Callie Siskel

Alexey Navalny’s death represents the culmination of the Kremlin’s efforts to push the country into a political deep freeze, but his legacy is a new generation of Russians who yearn to imagine alternatives to Putin’s regime.

The Dissident: Alexey Navalny, Profile of a Political Prisoner

by David M. Herszenhorn

Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?

by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble

Navalny

a film directed by Daniel Roher

Miranda Seymour

A Hectic Life

The bicentenary of Lord Byron’s death is an opportunity to ask what a witty dandy with the flamboyant attitudes of a raucously chauvinistic age can offer today’s world.

Byron: A Life in Ten Letters

by Andrew Stauffer

Jane Austen and Lord Byron: Regency Relations

by Christine Kenyon Jones

Jason DeParle

Sisyphus on the Street

Tracy Kidder’s portrait of a doctor and his homeless patients offers personhood to people many Americans have trained themselves not to see.

Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People

by Tracy Kidder

Daphne Merkin

The Way She Was

“I never thought I was great,” Barbra Streisand writes in her capacious memoir, but the truth seems to be that for a large part of her life she has flirted with the possibility that she was.

My Name Is Barbra

by Barbra Streisand

Eric Foner

A ‘Wary Faith’ in the Courts

A groundbreaking new book demonstrates that even during the days of slavery, African Americans knew a lot more about legal principles than has been imagined.

Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights

by Dylan C. Penningroth

Sophie Pinkham

Becoming One with Genius

In the translator Jennifer Croft’s new novel, a band of translators from around the world navigates romantic entanglements and their hero worship of an elusive Polish author.

The Extinction of Irena Rey

by Jennifer Croft

Michael Robbins

Domme Song 8

a poem

Trevor Jackson

The Crash Next Time

Can histories of economic crisis provide us with useful lessons?

Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization

by Harold James

The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them

by Linda Yueh

David A. Bell

Piety & Power

A lively biography of Marie de Vignerot, the niece, confidante, and heiress of Cardinal Richelieu, sheds light on the religious passions and political intrigues of seventeenth-century France.

La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France

by Bronwen McShea

James Quandt

An Anatolian Chekhov

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest film, About Dry Grasses, combines the painterly images, frustrated characters, and existential spirit of his earlier work.

About Dry Grasses

a film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

ReFocus: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan

edited by Gönül Dönmez-Colin

Phillip Lopate

‘Thus I Lived with Words’

The modern reading public has resisted relinquishing its settled idea about Robert Louis Stevenson as a romantic fantasist, but in his day he was considered one of the best essayists of his generation.

The Complete Personal Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson

edited by Trenton B. Olsen

Margaret Scott

Indonesia’s Corrupted Democracy

Behind the victory of his chosen successor in February’s elections lies a complicated story of how outgoing President Joko Widodo has co-opted much of Indonesian society while consolidating immense power.

The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and Its Limits in Democratic Indonesia

by Marcus Mietzner