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    Washington Experts Are Hopelessly in the Tank

    Have think tanks ignored the public good by adhering to ‘tribal’ loyalties rather than providing disinterested recommendations? Leslie Lenkowsky reviews “Right Moves” by Jason Stahl.

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    Mark Twain at Sea

    Desperate to pay off his debts, the writer spent 1895-96 on a round-the-world performance tour, performing 122 shows in 71 different cities. Ben Downing reviews “Chasing the Last Laugh” by Richard Zacks.

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    The Dissident’s Best Friend

    The publisher’s moral and practical support was exceptional and profoundly encouraging to those of us trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Natan Sharansky reviews “Speaking Freely” by Robert L. Bernstein.

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    Elitists for Revolution

    Franklin Roosevelt led America through depression and war. And weren’t the Founding Fathers limousine liberals avant la lettre? Daniel Akst reviews “The Limousine Liberal” by Steve Fraser.

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    Do We Need Less Democracy?

    A judge’s duty, argues the author, isn’t simply to defer to the legislature. He must inquire into whether the particular legislation is necessary. Adam J. White reviews “Our Republican Constitution” by Randy E. Barnett.

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    Did Allied Intelligence Have Any Effect on the War?

    Most World War II spies learned little of import—and those who did were invariably disbelieved. Stephen Budiansky reviews “The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945” by Max Hastings.

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    When America Ran on Empty

    Farmers, wildcatters, truck drivers, pipeline operators and oil companies all prospered by using energy policy to their advantage. Marc Levinson reviews “Panic at the Pump” by Meg Jacobs.

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    The Cop on the Global Beat

    It’s true: Iraq wasn’t transformed into Denmark. But it’s also not true, as the author argues, that Bush achieved none of his goals there. Douglas J. Feith reviews “Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era” by Michael Mandelbaum.

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    The Virtue of Hard Things

    A study of Ivy League undergraduates showed that the smarter the students were, as measured by SAT scores, the less they persevered. Emily Esfahani Smith reviews “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth.

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    America Needs a Prime Minister

    Government is broken, and changing the type of people elected to Congress won’t make a difference. Amending the Constitution will. Thomas J. Main reviews “Relic” by William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe.

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    At Home in the Science Lab

    Observation leads to a question, which in turn formulates a hypothesis, generates an experiment and, with luck, yields the ecstasy of discovery. Eugenia Bone reviews “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren.

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    Apartheid in America

    Most ‘enlightened’ whites in the antebellum era saw segregating free blacks as the only possible peaceful solution to the horror of slavery. Mark G. Spencer reviews “Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation” by Nicholas Guyatt.

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    The Agony of the Arab Spring

    Of the five countries where citizens rose up in 2011, only Tunisia is relatively stable and free. It also produces the most Islamic State recruits. Bartle Bull reviews “A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS” by Robert F. Worth.

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    Winning at Life—And Death

    The author, who suffers from Parkinson’s, thinks of himself as a ‘scout,’ sent out ahead of his Baby Boomer peers as they near decrepitude. Peter Stothard reviews “Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide” by Michael Kinsley.

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    Ignoring the Shale Revolution

    U.S. oil production, at nearly nine million barrels per day, is nine times what Hubbert predicted it would be in the 21st century. R. Tyler Priest reviews “The Oracle of Oil: A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable Future” by Mason Inman.

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    The Miracle in Your Coffee Cup

    Domino’s Pizza is actually in the logistics business, funneling pineapple from Thailand, boxes from Georgia and salt from Minnesota. Kyle Peterson reviews “Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation” by Edward Humes.

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    This Is Your Brain Online

    We live in the information age, yet we know less and less. We are manic about photographing our lives, but we remember less and less. Alan Jacobs reviews “When We Are No More” by Abby Smith Rumsey and “The Internet of Us” by Michael Patrick Lynch.

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    The Color Line, 500 Years Later

    Living in the ghetto, one sociologist noted in 1945, was like wearing a ‘badge of color’—not unlike the yellow star worn by European Jews. Jerry Brotton reviews “Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea” by Mitchell Duneier.

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    A Nation at War With Itself

    When FDR ran for an unprecedented third term, his outraged cousin Alice quipped that his initials stood for ‘Führer, Duce, Roosevelt.’

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    Real Reasons to Dislike Globalization

    You don’t have to be an anti-globalist to find Dubai repugnant. Fifth-century Athens produced Plato. Dubai produces bling. Adrian Wooldridge reviews “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization” by Parag Khanna.

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    Russia’s Wily Men and Women

    Russians hold views that seem impossible to reconcile. Students at a reputable school offer a curious mix of heroes: Stalin and Steve Jobs.

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    Turning Rustbelts Into Brainbelts

    Albany is now a hub of nanoscale science. But getting it off the ground was expensive: Every job created cost taxpayers nearly $1 million. Marc Levinson reviews “The Smartest Places on Earth” by Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker.

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    Lessons for Prideful Politicians

    The Truman-Vandenberg partnership realized the Marshall Plan, NATO, the UN Charter, the CIA, the Defense Department and the Air Force. Richard Aldous reviews “Harry and Arthur” by Lawrence J. Haas.

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    The Science of Serendipity

    In 1973 Anthony Hopkins found ‘The Girl From Petrovka’ on a bench just as he was making a film based on the book. What are the odds? Amir Alexander reviews “Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence” by Joseph Mazur.

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    Why Smart Folk Snort Coke

    Conventional wisdom insists that addiction is a disease, like cancer. But addiction is learned; cancer isn’t. Most people grow out of drug use. Sally Satel reviews “Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction” by Maia Szalavitz.

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    Her Eyes Had Seen the Glory

    Howe’s artistic ambitions were thwarted by her husband. ‘Hope died as I was led,’ she wrote in one poem, ‘unto my marriage bed.’ Benjamin Soskis reviews “The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe” by Elaine Showalter.

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    Harvey Penick: Master and Servant

    He recorded his thoughts at an average rate of less than a page a year. The book was ‘sprinkled with names and telephone numbers.’ David Owens reviews “Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf” by Kevin Robbins.

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    Gold Is Still the Best Insurance

    Fed officials past and present often disparage gold. But if it’s so worthless why does the U.S. have more than 8,000 tons? George Melloan reviews “The New Case for Gold” by James Rickards.

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    Making Must See TV

    Through sheer force of will, Wright created CNBC and MSNBC. He also brought Bravo and Telemundo under the corporate umbrella.

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    The Case for American Unexceptionalism

    Robert D. Kaplan reviews “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History” by Andrew J. Bacevich.

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    Elephants on the Quad

    One philosophy professor keeps her socially conservative husband away from work events because he ‘would be viewed as a fascist.’

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    The Free Stuff Majority

    How can we believe most Americans want smaller government when even Tea Partiers cling to Medicare and Social Security? Joseph C. Sternberg reviews “Conspiracies of the Ruling Class: How to Break Their Grip Forever” by Lawrence B. Lindsey.

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    The Power Broker of Kabul

    As the highest-ranking Muslim and Afghan-American in the Bush administration, Khalilzad returned home to help mold a new constitution. Claudia Rosett reviews “The Envoy” by Zalmay Khalilzad.

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    A Novel That Captures the Lives of the Illegals

    Sam Sacks reviews “The Year of the Runaways” Sunjeev Sahota’s masterly immigrant saga.

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    The Great Fall of China

    The country has entered the ‘middle income trap.’ It can only escape by taking the lead in industries that depend on brains—not brawn. Jeffrey Wasserstrom reviews “China’s Future” by David Shambaugh.

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    The First Abolitionist President

    Robert K. Landers reviews “John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit” by James Traub.

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    Women on the Verge of Enlightenment

    Mara Hvistendahl reviews “In Search of Buddha’s Daughters: A Modern Journey Down Ancient Roads” by Christine Toomey.

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    The Dangers of Abandoning Allies

    H.R. McMaster reviews “The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power” by Jakub J. Grygiel & A. Wess Mitchell.

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    Habits of Highly Productive People

    Amy Dockser Marcus reviews “Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg.

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    What’s the Difference Between a Brain and a Computer?

    The feeling of being conscious varies from moment to moment and from person to person. Everyone has a distinctive “cognitive gait.” David Eagleman reviews “The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness” by David Gelernter.

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    The Right to ‘Mobocracy’

    Many early Americans thought liberty was inextricably linked with property and thus wanted to restrict the vote to the well-to-do. Henry Olsen reviews “The Fight to Vote” by Michael Waldman.

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    The Shale Revolutionaries

    Philip Delves Broughton reviews “The Green and the Black: The Complete Story of the Shale Revolution, the Fight over Fracking, and the Future of Energy” by Gary Sernovitz.

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    Full-Court Press in North Carolina

    Will Blythe reviews “The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry” by John Feinstein.

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    After Saddam Was Hanged

    Kanan Makiya loved Iraq. His rage and despair at the brutality that has seized his country comes through on every page of “The Rope.”

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    What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You

    Physicians can’t really be certain if any treatment will help a particular person. But patients are looking for prescriptions, not probabilities.

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    Making Miami’s Master Suburb

    George Merrick’s grandfather had made his money with Fink’s Magic Oil. It is a natural progression from snake oil to Florida real estate. Stuart Ferguson reviews Arva Moore Parks’s book about the creator of Coral Gables.

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    Raising Loneliness to an Art

    How six painters and authors transformed urban isolation into lasting art. Ben Downing reviews “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” by Olivia Laing.

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    An American Revolutionary Loyal to Britain

    Franklin’s years in France resulted in military aid and recognition of American independence. His time in London? Slightly less successful. Jeffrey Collins reviews “Benjamin Franklin in London” by George Goodwin.

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    We’re All Cheaters Now

    The argument that polygamy is natural and monogamy cultural rests on a probably false distinction between nature and culture. Felipe Fernández-Armesto reviews “Out of Eden” by David P. Barash.

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    Before There Was Halliburton, There Was Bechtel

    Bechtel oversaw infrastructure projects all over the world. But when two executives joined Reagan’s cabinet, conspiracy theories began. Matthew Rees reviews “The Profiteers” by Sally Denton.

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    Humanity Hasn’t Got a Chance

    AI poker players can beat humans, computer models can predict horse races, and stock trades already move too fast for humans to keep up. Thomas A. Bass reviews “The Perfect Bet” by Adam Kucharski.

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    Razing Eden to Make Malibu

    The battle for Malibu included marauders on horseback, bootleggers, sheep slaughtering and dynamite. Nancy Rommelmann reviews “The King and Queen of Malibu” by David K. Randall.

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    Boardroom Brawlers

    James Grant reviews “Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism” by Jeff Gramm.

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    Where There’s Cannibalism, There’s Culture

    J.R. McNeill reviews “A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change—and the Limits of Evolution” by Felipe Fernández-Armesto.

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    Waging War in Zeros and Ones

    The U.S. dominates the fields of hardware and software. But it remains uniquely vulnerable because its so connected to the Internet.

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    Who ‘The ’Hood Is Good’ For

    The owner of a seedy trailer park earns roughly $447,000 a year. But if the profit were less, would those accommodations remain available?

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    Lives of the Selfie-Centered

    What do teenagers use their phones for? Bonding, backbiting, bullying—and texting naked pictures. Lots and lots of naked pictures.

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    In Defense of Government Snooping

    Critics charged that Stellarwind was nearly worthless as an intelligence tool. Hayden has no doubts about the program’s effectiveness.

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    How Culture Beat Religion

    Evangelicals reject the feminist label, yet they support feminist principles like equal pay for equal work and political equality.

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    Trapped by the New Iron Curtain

    Romania, having suffered under two of the nastiest dictators of the Soviet period, is now in the crosshairs of Putin’s new cold war.

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    The Bridge to Somewhere

    Techniques for smoothing the passage of humans and vehicles date to the Romans, whose famous roads were lined with hand-laid stones.

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    He Made the Great Leap

    Fang Lizhi’s name is banned in China. But everyone there who continues to push for democratic rights owes a debt to the dissident.

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    The Power of Positive Thinking

    Churchgoers seem to live longer than non-churchgoers—an effect that may have more to do with stress reduction than divine intervention.

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    The Enduring Mystery of Sappho

    Was Sappho a priestess? A teacher? A wedding planner? Was she even
    a ‘lesbian’ in the modern sense of the word?

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    The End of the Third World

    The rapid rise of China seems to contradict the author’s assertion that democracy is better than autocracy at facilitating rapid economic growth.

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    Everyone’s a Critic

    Is watching all the ‘Star Wars’ films in a single sitting (‘for purposes of research, naturally’) a reasonable way for an adult to make a living?

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    Stumping in Nixon’s Shadow

    Nixon was the master triangulator. Clinton adopted the template while enacting welfare reform. W. applied it to expanding Medicare.

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    The Rise of Islamic State

    Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say they would keep Assad in power to defeat the Syrian jihad. But ISIS is a product of the Assad regime.

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    The Prince of the Smugglers

    Smuggling was an affirmation of the gospel of free trade—a fundamental tenet of 19th-century liberalism—and a protest against protectionism.

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    The Unabomber’s Brother Speaks Out

    David Kaczynski looked up to his brother. Ted went to Harvard at 16 and was on the faculty at Berkeley by 25. But then he became a terrorist.

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    The Iranians Devoured by the Revolution

    The longtime aspiration of Iranian leftists—that gradual, peaceful change could come from within the system—is now a pipe dream.

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    Planning for the Unpredictable

    Knowing the facts is not the same as knowing the future. Who could have foreseen that the Arab Spring would begin with a fruit vendor?

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    The Jihadist Threats From Within

    Somewhere between mentally unstable drifters and the superstars of global jihad are lone wolves like the San Bernardino killers.

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    A Cold Warrior Haunted by the Bomb

    Perry helped introduce GPS and stealth innovations to the U.S. military. But not all military problems have a technological fix.

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    A New Dawn for a Dashing Casanova

    One of the most erotic yet discreetly hushed works of literature ever written.

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    Fighting Archie Moore, Pitching to Willie Mays and Quarterbacking the Lions

    Wearing number 00, George Plimpton stopped six out of seven Flyers shots
    for the Boston Bruins. Edward Kosner reviews reissues of “Paper Lion” and six other books.

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    Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Biography of the Gene

    No sooner was a new gene-editing technique devised than scientists themselves called for a moratorium. Nicholas Wade reviews “The Gene” by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

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    America’s Savior and Its Judas

    George Washington and Benedict Arnold shared many bonds and admired each other. Stephen Brumwell reviews “Valiant Ambition” by Nathaniel Philbrick.

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    The Savage War in the West

    The Apache armies did not go gently. They went down in an exceptional spasm of violence.

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    The Stories We Tell About the Universe

    The author doesn’t believe in God, but presumably believes in a parallel universe in which he does. Andrew Crumey reviews “The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself” by Sean Carroll.

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    The First Battle for the Airwaves

    As head of RCA, Sarnoff championed radio, color television and satellites—and helped create NBC. Howard Schneider reviews “The Network” by Scott Woolley.

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    Proof You Can Touch a Baby Bird

    In “Baby Birds,” Julie Zickefoose, like Leonardo in his notebooks, uses art as an instrument of scientific inquiry and science as an occasion for art. In “One Wild Bird at a Time,” Bernd Heinrich, one of the country’s most distinguished writer-naturalists, examines the lives of 17 birds.

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    When Fossil-Finding Was a Contact Sport

    The discovery of a toothed bird made news in the 1870s. A century later, so did feathered dinosaurs. Jennie Erin Smith reviews “House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth” by Richard Conniff.

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    Five Best: Kevin Rennie

    Kevin Rennie on political conventions

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    The Most Famous Slave in History

    Spartacus’s life before he was enslaved is a mystery. He may even have been a Thracian tribal chief. Allan Massie reviews “The Risen” by David Anthony Durham.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    Witches and wolves enjoy a candlelit supper, change into pajamas and brush their fangs.

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    Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries

    After meeting a powerful gangster in prison, a man is given a penthouse and cash—and an assignment.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction

    Childbirth is the most ubiquitous of human dramas. Why is it so rarely depicted in fiction?

  • May 7

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    Museums Shouldn’t Return Their Plundered Treasures

    In our age of contrition chic, returning artifacts is considered a necessary part of atonement. Henrik Bering reviews “Keeping Their Marbles” by Tiffany Jenkins.

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    Barbra Streisand’s Favorite Person

    That voice was effortless, and she knew it could make her a star. But acting she was forced to work at. Rachel Shukert reviews “Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power” by Neal Gabler.

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    The Original American Barbecue

    A native Louisianan sees the light in the form of vinegar-doused whole-hog Carolina barbecue. Terry Eastland reviews “The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog” by Rien Fertel.

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    The Hilltop Where 21st-Century Warfare Was Born

    A forgotten war in Lebanon anticipated America’s battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bret Stephens reviews “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story” by Matti Friedman.

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    Richard Russo Returns to North Bath

    The sequel to a beloved novel brings the return of favorite characters, but also inevitable repetitions. Mark Kamine “Everybody’s Fool” by Richard Russo.

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    Julian Barnes Gets in Shostakovich’s Head

    If music was a source of anguish for Shostakovich, surely it was also a source of pleasure and joy. Christopher Carroll reviews “The Noise of Time,” a novel by Julian Barnes.

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    John Coltrane and Black Holes

    Science benefits from the same kind of leaps of intuition that a sax player makes when soloing. Peter Pesic reviews “The Jazz of Physics” by Stephon Alexander.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews “Megalopolis and the Visitor From Outer Space” by Clea Dieudonne; “Thunder Boy Jr.” by Sherman Alexie; “The Bell in the Bridge” by Barry Root; “The Airport Book” by Lisa Brown; and “The Thank You Book” by Mo Willems.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction

    There’s not a boring page in Jennifer Haigh’s “Heat and Light”—a fittingly chaotic chronicle of our 21st-century oil rush.

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    Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries

    Tom Nolan reviews “Wilde Lake” by Laura Lippman.

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    Five Best: John Colapinto

    The author, most recently, of “Undone: A Novel” on books about deceit.

  • April 30

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    How to Save Billions—and Achieve Gender Equality

    About $8 billion a year is spent on diversity training, despite little evidence that it works. Carol Tavris reviews “Where Are the Women Architects?” by Despina Stratigakos and “What Works: Gender Equality by Design” by Iris Bohnet.

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    What Happens in Monte Carlo Doesn’t Stay There

    Karl Marx damned Monte Carlo as a ‘robber’s nest,’ the gamblers as ‘inmates of a lunatic asylum.’ Dominic Green reviews “Making Monte Carlo: A History of Speculation and Spectacle” by Mark Braude.

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    Obscure Obelisks of Desire

    Working with stone balls, the Egyptians needed half a year to carve these huge objects from the quarry.

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    Sam Sacks on New Novels by Adam Haslett and Don DeLillo

    One of the country’s most talented writers comes of age, while an old master delivers one of his funniest novels.

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    New York City, Au Naturale

    An army of 20,000 workers blasted rocks and planted trees to create lush Central Park. Gerard Helferich reviews “Green Metropolis” by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

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    Klaus Mann: Six Times Jinxed

    Thomas Mann’s love for his son Klaus verged on the amorous: ‘No one like me should have children.’ James Campbell reviews “Cursed Legacy” by Frederic Spotts.

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    The War for Quebec

    Wolfe was in despair at Quebec’s geographical advantages and disease ravaging his camp. David Preston reviews “Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution” by D. Peter Macleod.

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    Did Jack the Ripper Strike First in Austin?

    Reporters in Texas and England quickly suggested that ‘Jack the Ripper’ was also the Austin fiend.

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    The Father of Modern Ireland

    Like Woodrow Wilson, Eamon de Valera had a frightening messianism. Michael O’Donnell reviews “Eamon de Valera: A Will to Power” by Ronan Fanning.

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    It’s Hip to Be Square

    Public squares are civic bulwarks and nightmares for strongmen. Mubarak learned that the hard way. Moira Hodgson reviews “City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World” by Catie Marron.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews “There Is a Tribe of Kids” by Lane Smith; “A Year of Borrowed Men” by Michelle Barker and Renné Benoit; “Where’s Warhol?” by Catherine Ingram and Andrew Rae; and “Jack’s Worry” by Sam Zuppardi.

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    Five Best: Peter Behrens

    The author, most recently, of the novel “Carry Me” on books about male ambition.

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    The Great Depression . . . With Zombies

    Tom Shippey reviews Richard Kadrey’s “The Everything Box” and Harry Turtledove’s “The House of Daniel.”

  • April 23

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    Physics for Dummies

    Alan Hirshfeld reviews “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” by Carlo Rovelli and “The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond” by Christophe Galfard. Both authors convey us to the furthest outpost of our scientific knowledge, from which physicists are blazing trails into the benighted region beyond.

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    Shakespeare the Conqueror

    An Indian “Romeo and Juliet” released on the eve of partition featured a Hindu Romeo and a Muslim Juliet. Jonathan Bate reviews “Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe” by Andrew Dickson.

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    All Women Have the Same Part-Time Job

    Helen Gurley Brown rejected feminist calls for authenticity. She saw being a woman as a role—one to be mastered.

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    Kick Kennedy: Young and in Love

    Strait-laced young Brits were quickly charmed by the chatty, high-spirited daughter of the new American ambassador. Richard Davenport-Hines reviews “Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter” by Barbara Leaming.

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    Dizzy’s Trip to the Top of the Greasy Pole

    The higher his political profile rose, the more he stirred resentment. Benjamin Balint reviews “Disraeli: The Novel Politician” by David Cesarani.

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    Thomas Paine: Practical Revolutionary

    Paine imagined ambitious bridge-building as a way of binding together a new and expanding nation. Kathleen DuVal reviews “Tom Paine’s Iron Bridge: Building a United States” by Edward G. Gray.

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    Why We Climb

    Even as “mountain men” were settling the West, climbing was becoming a popular form of tourism.

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    The Invention of Cake

    German chocolate cake has nothing to do with Germany; it’s named after a British chocolatier. Danny Heitman reviews “Cake: A Slice of History” by Alysa Levene.

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    The Brilliance of Bird Brains

    If a crow realizes that another bird has seen it burying food, it will often go back later to re-hide it.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction

    The hilarious gloss on a Viagra ad that features a middle-aged man alone on a boat is itself worth the cover price of Jim Lynch’s “Before the Wind.”

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best Children’s Books

    Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews two novels for younger readers: Lauren Wolk’s “Wolf Hollow” and Robin Stevens’s “Poison Is Not Polite.”

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    Five Best: Douglas Kennedy

    The author, most recently, of the novel “The Blue Hour” on bad marriages.

  • April 16

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    Abigail Adams: The American Eve

    Adams was fitted to an era when truths previously considered self-evident were suddenly up for grabs. Jane Kamensky reviews “Abigail Adams: Letters” edited by Edith Gelles.

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    The Space Shuttle and NASA’s Mission to Nowhere

    The fantasy of a low-cost reusable shuttle set us on the path to today's aimless space program. Gregg Easterbrook reviews “Into the Black” by Rowland White.

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    The Thief of Macedon

    The funeral pyre built for Hephaestion burnt up a trove equal to imperial Athens’s yearly revenue. James Romm reviews “The Treasures of Alexander: How One Man’s Wealth Shaped the World” by Frank L. Holt.

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    The Woman Who Won 27 Pulitzers and 16 Nobel Prizes

    It was Blanche Knopf, not Alfred A., who had the taste to pick great writers and the tact to woo them. Blake Bailey reviews “The Lady With the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire” by Laura Claridge.

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    The Mass Graves of Natural History Museums

    Bone rooms were created in part to characterize races and to affirm, implicitly, a hierarchy. Edward Rothstein reviews “Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums” by Samuel J. Redman.

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    The Pitcher’s Best Friend Is a Surgeon

    More than half of all Tommy John surgeries are now performed on
    15- to 19-year-old athletes. Jonah Keri reviews “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” by Jeff Passan.

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    The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible

    Moses Wilhelm Shapira’s scrolls seemed to have been written in Moses’s day and contained a copy of Deuteronomy. Isaac Chotiner reviews “The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible” by Chanan Tigay.

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    The Guy Who Put Dukakis in the Tank

    One rule the 1988 fiasco cemented: Never, ever put headgear on a presidential candidate. Tevi Troy reviews “Off Script: An Advance Man’s Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide” by Josh King.

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    Five Best: Robert W. Merry

    The author, most recently, of “Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians” on presidential campaigns.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Novels

    Now arrives volume five of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s long literary selfie.

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    Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries

    An accidental lord in 14th-century England investigates unsettling deaths in his village.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews “The Lie Tree” by Frances Hardinge; “Ollie’s Odyssey” by William Joyce; “Stop Following Me, Moon!” by Darren Farrell; and “Miró’s Magic Animals” by Anthony Penrose.

  • What to Read This Spring

    Batman vs. the Batfans; being a Vanderbilt; behind the scenes at ‘Hamilton;’ a missing Velázquez and much more

  • Spring Books

    Illustration by Paul Cox

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    Penalizing the Palefaces

    Uttering a word like “Redskins,” insists one academic, “disappears Native Americans.” Dave Shiflett reviews “Redskins: Insult and Brand” by C. Richard King.

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    Homer, Herodotus and Horace Still Matter

    A bracing tour of Greece and Rome—“A man must have real talent to write works as bad as these.” Christopher Krebs reviews “Classical Literature: An Epic Journey From Homer to Virgil and Beyond” by Richard Jenkyns.

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    Gloria Vanderbilt and Son

    Vanderbilt’s instructions for her funeral: The dress must be Fortuny, yellow; Aki must do the makeup. Lesley M.M. Blume reviews “The Rainbow Comes and Goes” by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt.

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    Jack Ma Couldn’t Get a Job at KFC

    How the boy who failed his college entry exams became a billionaire. Tom Nagorski reviews “Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built” by Duncan Clark.

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    Finding an Old Master at a Boarding School Auction

    The painting became John Snare’s for £8. Henrik Bering reviews “The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th-Century Bookseller’s Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece” by Laura Cumming.

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    There’s More to Jefferson Than His Hypocrisy

    Barton Swaim reviews “ ‘Most Blessed of the Patriarchs’: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination” by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf.

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    The Book of ‘Hamilton’

    Candy for superfans of the Broadway blockbuster. Joanne Kaufman reviews “Hamilton: The Revolution” by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter.

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    A Novel With Roots in ‘The Arabian Nights’ and ‘Harry Potter’

    Tom Shippey reviews “Septimania” by Jonathan Levi.

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    An Epic Battle That Created Czechoslovakia

    Japanese and American troops landed in Siberia to support the Czech Legion. Arthur Herman reviews “Dreams of a Small Nation: The Mutinous Army That Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe” by Kevin J. McNamara.

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    Just How Old Is the Universe?

    Until recently, the most careful measurements dated some stars to before the universe began. Joshua Sokol reviews “13.8: The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and the Theory of Everything” by John Gribbin.

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    Dress Impeccably and They Remember the Woman

    Karl Lagerfield is right: “One is never overdressed or underdressed in a little black dress.” Moira Hodgson reviews “Dressing the Decades” by Emmanuelle Dirix and “Little Black Dress” by Shannon Meyer.

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    ‘Chimes at Midnight’ Was Worth Any Number of Abandoned Wives

    Falstaff was the role Orson Welles was born to play: ‘greed sanctified, mendacity hallowed, rascality blessed.’ Scott Eyman reviews “Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band” by Simon Callow.

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    Willie Morris: Mississippi’s Favorite Son

    The Rhodes Scholar from Yazoo City was an editorial prodigy, taking over Harper’s at 32. Edward Kosner reviews “Willie: The Life of Willie Morris” by Teresa Nicholas.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    “Are We There Yet?” by Dan Santat is part mind trip, mostly road trip and entirely a call to savor even the dreariest moments in life.

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    Laura Ingalls Wilders Without Trigger Warnings

    The books would help children understand “what it is that made America as they know it.” Thomas L. Jeffers reviews “The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” edited by William Anderson.

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    Oology for Dummies

    Eggs are highly porous yet resist infection thanks to an albumen full of antimicrobial protein. Jennie Erin Smith reviews “The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg” by Tim Birkhead.

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    How to Eat Like an Animal

    Finding ingredients for dinner in the woods and the water. Georgia Pellegrini reviews “In Pursuit of Wild Edibles” by Jeffrey Greene.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction

    Reviews of “The Dig” by John Preston and “Breaking Light” by Karin Altenberg.

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    From ‘Boneshakers’ to Citi Bikes

    A disruptive technology gets a second chance. Wayne Curtis reviews “The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life” by Margaret Guroff.

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    George Jones Was as Good as Sinatra

    He imitated Hank Williams’s sound and feared he would meet the same early death. Ryan Cole reviews “The Grand Tour” by Rich Kienzle.

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    Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries

    An L.A. gangbanger hits the road to kill a judge.

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    Batman: The Great American Nerd

    Beginning in the 1970s, the superhero was depicted as an obsessed loner. No wonder geeks loved him. Michael Saler reviews “The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture” by Glen Weldon.

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    Five Best: Lesley Stahl

    The “60 Minutes” correspondent and author of “Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting” on strong women.

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    The Age of the Selfie

    In the age of the selfie, studying “visual culture” sounds important. But too often the discipline becomes a grab-bag.

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