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    Michael Chabon’s Age of Heroes

    “Moonglow” is an ancestor’s tale transmuted into a bewitching work of Greatest Generation mythology. The novel is a celebration not only of one character’s remarkable life but of the country where it was possible.

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    Thomas Hardy in the Madding Crowd

    For a man so closely associated with rural England, Hardy spent considerable time enjoying the delights of the Victorian metropolis. D.J. Taylor reviews “Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner” by Mark Ford.

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    A Modern Lawrence of Arabia

    Stewart was brought up like the man-child in Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Kim.’ His father was a D-Day veteran whose greatest insult was ‘boring.’ Andrew Lownie reviews “The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland” by Rory Stewart.

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    Everyone Has an App Idea

    Rapid change creates discomfort and provokes backlash—witness Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. What can we do to cope? Laura Vanderkam reviews “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations” by Thomas L. Friedman.

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    How the Quad Went Coed

    ‘What is this nonsense about admitting women to Princeton? A good old-fashioned whore-house would be considerably more efficient.’ Leonore Tiefer reviews “Keep the Damned Women Out” by Nancy Weiss Malkiel.

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    Ruling Over Our Dominion

    We are living in the Anthropocene: an era when human beings have changed the planet in ways that will be obvious in the geological record. Matt Ridley reviews “The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age” by David Biello.

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    Charity: The Ultimate Luxury

    Joan Kroc gave $225 million to National Public Radio at her death even though she hadn’t been a devoted listener or regular donor. Marc Levinson reviews “Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away” by Lisa Napoli.

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    The Invisible Digital Hand

    Thanks to sophisticated data about their potential customers, online sellers engage in ‘almost perfect’ behavioral price discrimination. Burton G. Malkiel reviews “Virtual Competition” by Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke.

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    Imagining a Good Islamic State

    While the idea of a caliphate is used and twisted by Islamists for sinister and brutal ends, the concept is not in itself threatening or dangerous. Ebrahim Moosa reviews “Caliphate: The History of an Idea” by Hugh Kennedy.

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    The Genesis of Prosperity

    What brought about the Great Enrichment? And why did it start in England? It had a culture that embraced change and scientific inquiry. Richard Vedder reviews “A Culture of Growth” by Joel Mokyr.

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    Free Thought Under Siege

    The battle over microaggressions going on at our universities is both a symptom and a cause of malaise and strife in society at large. Daniel Shuchman reviews “What’s Happened to the University?” by Frank Furedi.

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    Saul Friedländer Battles the Darkness

    One of the most eminent historians of the Nazi war of extermination shares his struggles to understand how it determined his own life. Michael S. Roth reviews “When Memory Comes” and “Where Memory Leads.”

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    Real Locker Room Talk

    Pete Carroll gave his team a book about Stoicism last year. Can we expect more virtuous, resilient and self-aware Seahawks on the gridiron? James Romm reviews “The Daily Stoic” by Ryan Holiday.

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    A Brilliant History of Technology

    Why are spun fibers are strong? Why do most screws have right-hand threads? And why are the wheels on Conestoga wagons so very big? Answers to all these and more in “Why the Wheel Is Round” by Steven Vogel.

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    The Messiah of Masculinity

    Kennedy has been so many things since he was assassinated—hero of freedom, boy-king at the Round Table of Camelot, sunglassed celebrity and martyr. Now, in “JFK and the Masculine Mystique,” he is here to save us from “the crisis of masculinity.”

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    The Sexiest City in the World

    Shawn Levy’s “Dolce Vita Confidential” captures the excess, debauchery, sensuality and joy of 1950s Rome.

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    The ‘Devil’s Excrement’

    Venezuela imports two-thirds of its sugar. The shortage of toilet paper is blithely reported as a sign that people are eating more. Roger Lowenstein reviews "Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela” by Raúl Gallegos.

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    The Civil War’s Unlikely Genius

    When Sherman’s army marched across Georgia to Savannah, Meigs was waiting at the coast with a complete refit for all the troops. Allen Guelzo reviews “The Quartermaster: Montgomery C. Meigs, Lincoln’s General, Master Builder of the Union Army” by Robert O’Harrow Jr.

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    America’s Army of Mavericks

    In 2012, veteran counterterrorist officials concluded that the White House was suppressing intelligence on Islamic extremist threats to justify pulling out of the Middle East. Mark Moyar reviews “Twilight Warriors” by James Kitfield.

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    Bob Dylan: Oracle and Iconoclast

    It was said of Dylan that he didn’t need a Nobel, that he is yet another old white guy, that he is arrogant, that he composes songs not poems. David Lehman reviews “The Lyrics: 1961-2012” by Bob Dylan.

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    The Monsters That Torment Us

    The Shockoe Bottom neighborhood was once the epicenter of the American slave trade. So why are its spirits ‘overwhelmingly white’?

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    How to Make a Gun at Home

    Is Cody Wilson peddling ‘open source terrorism’ by publishing designs for a
    3D-printed gun? Or is he a free-speech hero? Ronald Bailey reviews “Come and Take It: The Gun Printer’s Guide to Thinking Free” by Cody Wilson.

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    Smuggling Truth Past the Censors

    Yan Lianke’s burlesque of a nation driven insane by money is equally a satire of some of the excesses of the Chinese Revolution.

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    Newspapers Are Social Media

    You may think you’re in the information business, but you’re actually in the far more lucrative business of connecting people. Joshua Gans “The Content Trap” by Bharat Anand.

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    At Home With the Hitmakers

    So what if Burt Bacharach was a narcissist? What was that failing next to his bright blue eyes, salt-and-pepper hair and sexy voice? Joanne Kaufman reviews “They’re Playing Our Song” by Carole Bayer Sager.

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    Four Hundred Years of Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free

    In Tyler Anbinder’s “City of Dreams,” New York is a gateway, a haven and the crucible that forged the fates of millions of immigrants and shaped the destiny of our nation.

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    The Most Misunderstood President

    Yes, U.S. Grant was good at waging war. But he was also, as Ronald C. White shows in “American Ulysses,” our first powerful civil-rights advocate.

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    Evelyn Waugh, Revisited

    Reading Philip Eade’s biography is a reminder that good novels are richer than their authors.

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    Restoring the Fortunes of Zion

    Early Zionists had an arch distrust of traditions and hierarchy. Their emphasis on self-reliance shaped an ethos that remains alive and well. Neil Rogachevsky reviews “Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn” by Daniel Gordis.

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    Clicking Our Way to the Grave

    In ‘The Attention Merchants,’ Tim Wu argues that we are victims of a slow-motion crime, a hijacking of our inner lives by commercial interests that began in 1833.

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    The Immigration Debate We Need

    Amnesty or a wall are radical policies to deal with the country’s millions of illegal immigrants. In ‘We Wanted Workers,’ economist George J. Borjas offers a saner solution: Do nothing.

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    Revenge Killings in Scotland

    Roderick John Macrae murders a constable—and the man’s son and daughter. He tells his grisly tale in the shadow of the hangman’s noose. Tom Nolan reviews “His Bloody Project,” a novel by Graeme Macrae Burnet.

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    The New Rockefellers

    Is our culture of wealth, led by the likes of Gates and Buffett, replacing a society of citizens with a new social order of patrons and supplicants?

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    Reframing the American Revolution

    Two new books—“Of Arms and Artists” by Paul Staiti and “A Revolution in Color” by Jane Kamensky—show how our vision of the revolutionary era was shaped by the artists who lived through it.

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    The Definitive History of Modern Vietnam

    Christopher Goscha’s new history reminds us that the country was dominated by foreign powers long before France and America came along.

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    The Stage Mom Behind the Marx Brothers

    In “Four of the Three Musketeers” Robert S. Bader shows that Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo had nothing on Minnie Marx—the booster, nag and agent who set them on their way to fame.

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    On the Frontlines of Putin’s War

    Stalin starved the Ukranian people. Hitler occupied them. Now Kremlin propagandists call Ukraine, independent since 1991, a fake nation. Sohrab Ahmari reviews “In Wartime: Stories From Ukraine” by Tim Judah.

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    Student Loans: Don’t Call It a Crisis

    The highest default rate is not among borrowers with large debts but among those who left school owing less than $5,000.

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    Seeing China With Fresh Eyes

    The hard work and enterprise of China’s people—not Communist Party policies—have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Howard W. French reviews “The Perfect Dictatorship” by Stein Ringen.

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    The Customer Is Always Right

    People ‘hire’ companies to do a job. That’s why the names of some of the most successful ones—such as Google and Xerox—become verbs. Philip Delves Broughton reviews “Competing Against Luck” by Clayton M. Christensen et al.

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    A Prize Worth Celebrating

    The Nobel for economics, first given in 1969, has been instrumental in recognizing and popularizing the work of laissez-faire economists. Edward Glaeser reviews “The Nobel Factor” by Avner Offer and Gabriel Söderberg.

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    Alan Greenspan Foresaw the Housing Crisis. Why Didn’t He Act?

    Randall S. Kroszner reviews Sebastian Mallaby’s “The Man Who Knew,” the story of five decades of America’s economic triumph and failure.

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    American Philosophers Can Change Your Life

    John Kaag doubts his profession—and then finds the answers to the profoundest questions in “American Philosophy: A Love Story.”

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    The Real Steelers

    In a former Pennsylvania steel town, a football team remains the single source of pride. It’s a microcosm for a whole region of America. David M. Shribman reviews “Playing Through the Whistle: Steel, Football, and an American Town” by S.L. Price.

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    Our Asian Frenemies

    To ‘win’ Japan to our side in the Cold War, we offered the most generous occupation—aid, reduced reparations and guaranteed security. Richard Bernstein reviews “Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia” by Victor D. Cha.

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    The Inventive Character of Our Country

    Copper-riveted jeans, the first oil rig, running shoes, dry cleaning and the 23-story-high clipper ship—as American as apple pie.

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    How Americans Lost Their Religion

    Young Americans today don’t have teachers or pastors to shape their belief. They think of religions as a solo quest for an authentic self.

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    Welcome to the Putinkin Village

    Putin was against hosting the Olympics until his minions, egged on by contract-driven oligarchs, organized a PR campaign for one “customer.” Karen Dawisha reviews “All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin” by Mikhail Zygar.

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    What Happened to Flight 370

    Christine Negroni investigates the world’s most mysterious crashes—including the disappearance of Amelia Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra—in “The Crash Detectives.”

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    The Men Who Reinvented Football

    How a pass-happy coach at Iowa Wesleyan University changed the college and pro games. Will Leitch reviews S.C. Gwynne’s “The Perfect Pass.”

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    There’s No Laughing in Politics

    To make people laugh about politics, a writer has to make politics subservient to his art. Are conservatives better at doing this than liberals? Barton Swaim reviews “The Beltway Bible” by Eliot Nelson.

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    FDR’s Right-Hand Woman

    Roosevelt altered his will to give Missy LeHand half of his estate. When she died before him, he had a U.S. naval cargo ship named in her honor. Alonzo L. Hamby reviews “The Gatekeeper” by Kathryn Smith.

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    Stiffening the American Spine

    Denmark’s former prime minister exhorts Americans to resist retreat. ‘Leading from behind’ may work with grazing sheep. It doesn’t in wolf country. Josef Joffe reviews “The Will to Lead” by Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

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    The Man Who Built Kayak

    During one episode of hypomania, Paul English bid $500,000 on an abandoned lighthouse. Recently, he decided to become an Uber driver. John Bloom reviews “A Truck Full of Money: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success” by Tracy Kidder.

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    How Civil Liberties Went Mainstream

    The free-speech movement was originally a means to an economic end: Progressives wanted to protect labor unions’ right to strike. Samuel Moyn reviews “The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise” by Laura Weinrib.

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    Bruce Springsteen Unmasks His Agonies in the Memoir ‘Born to Run’

    Ecstatic live shows, the singer writes, gave him the ‘illusion of intimacy without risk.’ Jim Fusilli reviews ‘Born to Run’ by Bruce Springsteen.

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    The Odors, Stenches and Reeks of George Orwell

    The “real secret of class distinctions,” Orwell wrote, was this: “The lower classes smell.” Dominic Green reviews “Orwell’s Nose: A Pathological Biography” by John Sutherland.

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    The Man Who Tried to Save Greece

    Today most Greeks have forgotten the arsonists who laid the fire. Instead they blame those, like George Papaconstantinou, who tried to put it out. Marcus Walker reviews “Game Over: The Inside Story of the Greek Crisis” by George Papaconstantinou.

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    Jane Jacobs: The Seer of Hudson Street

    Jacobs barely graduated high school, but her brilliance, wrote one reviewer, would have ‘ensured her destruction as a witch’ in an earlier age. John Buntin reviews “Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs” by Robert Kanigel.

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    From Buddha to Bollywood

    A similar book about America—“The United States in 50 Lives,” as it were—would be awash with entrepreneurial names. But in India, capitalists have been like moneyed underlings. Tunku Varadarajan reviews “Incarnations: A History of India in 50 Lives” by Sunil Khilnani.

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    The Biggest Fad in Physics

    Many physicists believe that basic constituents of the world are tiny strings, vibrating in a slew of dimensions. Roger Penrose, an elder statesman of physics and the author of “Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe,” doesn’t buy it.

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    Dying: Still Terrible—But Not as Bad as You Think

    Eternal life might be unbearable, allowing for the crushing accumulation of bitter memories of slights, failures and betrayals. Colin McGinn reviews “The Consolations of Mortality: Making Sense of Death” by Andrew Stark.

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    The Iron Lady’s Courtiers

    Four men of the Thatcher court used to gather in the Old Rose pub to translate Seneca—who well understood the dangers of proximity to power. Richard Aldous reviews “The Senecans: Four Men and Margaret Thatcher” by Peter Stothard.

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    The Necessity of the Rich

    Steve Jobs may have earned huge profits from his innovations, but they pale in comparison with the value of the iPhone to its users. Richard Epstein reviews “The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class” by Edward Conard.

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    The Starbucks of Music Education

    Venezuela is a failed state, yet it is revered by practitioners of the most bourgeois art form in the Western world: classical music. Norman Lebrecht reviews “Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music” by Tricia Tunstall and Eric Booth.

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    Coddled on Campus

    Students who say they’re ‘triggered’ by Mark Twain are appropriating—to borrow their term—language formerly applied to PTSD victims. Jonathan Marks reviews “Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know” by Jonathan Zimmerman.

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    The Ritalin Generation

    The blame lies with overzealous physicians; nervous parents; schools looking to rein in troublemakers; and pushy drug companies. Sally Satel reviews “ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic” by Alan Schwarz.

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    A ‘Former Person’ in a Gilded Cage

    In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is found guilty of the crime of being born privileged. His sentence? House arrest in the Metropol Hotel. Douglas Smith reviews “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles.

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    The Road to Colin Kaepernick

    Most people forget that Kenny Washington taped his ankles for the Rams one year before Jackie Robinson went to bat for the Dodgers. Gregg Easterbrook reviews “Lost Champions: Four Men, Two Teams, and the Breaking of Pro Football’s Color Line” by Gretchen Atwood.

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    We’re All Cord Cutters Now

    At one chain, the top 100 movie titles accounted for 85% of the DVDs rented in-store. But online, the top titles make up only 35% of rentals. Frank Rose reviews “Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment” by Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang.

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    Secrets of the Spymaster

    Yasser Arafat toted a silver pistol and smelled of Johnson’s Baby Powder. Joseph Brodsky, having just won a Nobel Prize in literature, looked at le Carré with tears in his eyes: ‘Now for a year of being glib.’ Richard Davenport-Hines reviews “The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life” by John le Carré.

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    The Necessity of Taking Up Arms

    Englishmen on both sides of the Atlantic went to war with one another in 1776 because they did not go to war with France and Spain and the Indian confederations. Brendan Simms reviews “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804” by Alan Taylor.

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    Before Rush and Roger Ailes

    Without the influence of National Review publisher Bill Rusher, there would have been no Goldwater—and no Reagan some 16 years later. Lee Edwards reviews “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics” by Nicole Hemmer.

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    Our All-Conquering Armada

    To defeat Japan, the U.S. turned the Navy into a technologically advanced seaborne civilization. Richard Snow reviews “The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945” by James D. Hornfischer.

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    Dim Sum: The Delicious Diaspora

    A taxonomy of dumplings, buns, meats, sweets and other specialties of the Chinese teahouse. Adrian Ho reviews “The Dim Sum Field Guide” by Carolyn Phillips.

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    Step Into the Madhouse

    Two new books tackle the most notorious mental hospitals in the Western world: Bedlam and Bellevue. Andrew Scull reviews “This Way Madness Lies” by Mike Jay and “Bellevue” by David Oshinsky.

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    J.M.W. Turner Was a Hustler

    How did the son of a barber become the first popular artist of the modern age? Mark Archer reviews “The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner” by Franny Moyle.

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    President Shot at World’s Fair

    In 1901, Buffalo was a thriving, spirited metropolis of 370,000, bursting with civic pride. Margaret Creighton’s “The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City” explains how the city and the exposition it hosted became the victims of wretched luck.

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    If You Like Thoreau, Read Loren Eiseley

    The celebrated nature writer was skeptical of the space program: He found enough objects of inquiry on Earth to last him several lifetimes. Danny Heitman reviews Eiseley’s “Collected Essays.”

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    Ukraine, Surreal and Sincere

    In “Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine,” Sophie Pinkham gives us portraits of bohemians, nudists, activists and other outliers. Alexandra Popoff reviews.

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    Finding the Real Rasputin

    He was illiterate, filthy, a fraud, a money-grubber, a traitor, a warmonger, a demonic miracle-worker. None of these claims were wholly true; most were wholly invented. Edward Lucas on Douglas Smith’s definitive biography.

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    The Best New Children’s Books

    Meghan Cox Gurdon on six beautiful books for Christmas and Hanukkah.

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    The Wisdom of ‘The Breakfast Club’

    Hughes’s films taught generations of the uncool that things would

    turn out all right. Brian P. Kelly reviews “Searching for John Hughes” by Jason Diamond.

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    Five Best: Anne Sebba

    The author of “Les Parisiennes: How the women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died under Nazi Occupation” on women in wartime Paris.

  • Holiday Books: What to Give

    The best gifts for foodies, art lovers, science buffs, design enthusiasts, sports fans and everyone else.

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    What to Give: Nature Books

    Brilliant birds, wily coyotes, the ‘Doomsday Vault,’ and more. Jonathan Rosen picks the best gifts for nature lovers.

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    What to Give: Mystery Books

    Treasures for fans of P.D. James, Simenon, and Ross Macdonald. Tom Nolan picks the best gifts for mystery lovers.

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    What to Give: Children’s Books

    Beasts as familiar as the European hedgehog and as exotic as the Mongolian quadruped known as Przewalski’s Horse. Meghan Cox Gurdon picks the best gifts for kids.

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    What to Give: Science Books

    Time travel, the “Pope” of physics and the real power of mind over matter. Nicholas Wade picks the best books for science lovers.

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    What to Give: Reference Books

    Atlases in the smartphone age and the ultimate guide to right word. Barton Swaim picks the best books for nerds.

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    What to Give: History Books

    Sherman, Grant, the Romanovs and the heroes who hunted the Nazis. Richard Snow picks the best books to give to history buffs.

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    What to Give: Sports Books

    Gridiron glory in a steel town, getting inside Kobe’s head, and this year’s “Moneyball.” Will Leitch picks the best gifts for sports fans.

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    What to Give: Food Books

    Fuschia Dunlop goes to China, Anthony Bourdain’s ugly biscuits, Melanie Dupuis’s home patisserie. Eugenia Bone on the best gifts for foodies.

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    What to Give: Photography Books

    Snapping Staten Island, JFK, Coco Chanel, Isamu Noguchi, Harvard Yard and more. William Meyers picks the best gifts for photography lovers.

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    What to Give: Art Books

    Velázquez, Matisse, Picasso, Arts & Crafts, Pop Art and naked people. Jonathan Lopez picks the best gifts for art lovers.

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    What to Give: Business Books

    The man who wired the world, the Elon Musk of the 1940s and the race to make a spaceship. Patrick Cooke on the best books for anyone working at a Fortune 500 or a startup.

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    What to Give: Design Books

    Gems, labyrinths, stilettos and Sealyham Terriers. Ann Landi picks the best gifts for design buffs.

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    John Aubrey: A Lover of Earthy Detail

    It is thanks to the writer that we know Thomas Hobbes played tennis and John Milton could sing. Jeffrey Collins reviews “John Aubrey, My Own Life” by Ruth Scurr.

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    Herbert Hoover Was Wrong

    Amity Shlaes reviews two new books about the former president and argues that the New Deal was simply a more intense, less constitutional version of Hoover’s policies—and both failed to yield recovery.

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    The Most Famous Reindeer

    Montgomery Ward executives feared Rudolph’s red nose would remind too many parents of drunks. Edward Kosner reviews “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: An American Hero” by Ronald D. Lankford Jr.

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    A House at the End of the World

    How a year spent living alone in a shack on the Nauset dunes inspired Rachel Carson and helped create the Cape Cod National Seashore. Gerard Helferich reviews “Orion on the Dunes: A Biography of Henry Beston” by Daniel G. Payne.

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    A Roll Call of Dinosaurs

    In these field guides to prehistoric mammals and dinosaurs, meet the creatures that plodded and prowled millions of years ago.

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    Why Men Die First

    Men are all too willing to bet a stack of survivorship chips if the big payout is the possibility of sex. Michael Shermer reviews “How Men Age” by Richard G. Bribiescas.

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    Charlemagne: The Father of Europe

    It wasn’t easy ruling a medieval empire. Michael Kulikowski reviews “Charlemagne” by Johannes Fried.

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    Beating Back the British at Saratoga

    The pivotal Hudson Valley campaign through the eyes of those who were there. Stephen Brumwell reviews “1977: Tipping Point at Saratoga” by Dean Snow.

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    The Pleasures of Live Animal Sacrifice

    Georgia Pellegrini reviews “The Essential Oyster” by Rowan Jacobsen—a dazzling book about the best bivalves of our time.

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    Step Inside Monet’s Garden

    Without the urging of a radical journalist and politician, the painter never would have undertaken his most ambitious project. Maxwell Carter reviews “Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies” by Ross King.

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    The Wide, Weird World of Contemporary Art

    Hoorah for “My Life as a Work of Art”—a book about art that doesn’t bury the reader under a mudslide of theory, even when the works of art in question strain credulity.

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    Playing Is Serious Business

    Play depends on restrictions and limitations: the rules of a game and the boundaries of a field, but also the conventions of musical harmony or the form of a sonnet. Steven Poole reviews “Wonderland” by Steven Johnson; and “Play Anything” by Ian Bogost.

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    Murakami and the Maestro

    Seiji Ozawa is a beloved figure, known more for his modesty, preparation and smiling-hippie looks than for breaking batons. In “Absolutely on Music: Conversations With Seiji Ozawa” he talks about his craft with Haruki Murakami.

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    Sam Sacks on Henry James

    James can seem unapproachable, but he was, in fact, a raconteur and pleasure-seeker. He believed in laughter, friendship and kindness. And even as he rounded into plump old age, he embodied the young man’s eagerness for learning and improvement.

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    Kafka’s Own Metamorphosis

    The uncanny inner world of the civil servant that gave us that gave us the 20th century’s most imperishable fables about disorientation, guilt and absurdity. Benjamin Balint on two books about Kafka by Reiner Stach.

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    The Flavors of the Persian Empire

    In “Taste of Persia” globe-trotting author Naomi Duguid approaches ethnic cuisine more like a journalist than a chef.

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    The Great White Way Hits Tinseltown

    In “When Broadway Went to Hollywood,” Ethan Mordden examines this transition in works that run the gamut of the Hollywood musical, from “The Jazz Singer” to “Into the Woods.”

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    When Thomas Hart Benton Worked for Disney

    “The Walt Disney Film Archives,” a 16-pound coffee table book, celebrates the company’s genius animators—some of them very unlikely.

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    Five Best: Tilar J. Mazzeo

    The author of “Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto” on rescuers.

  • November 12

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    Twenty-Six Seconds That Changed the World

    The most important historical film ever made is 6 feet of 8mm film on a plastic reel shot by a 58-year-old dress manufacturer named Abraham Zapruder. Edward Kosner reviews “Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film” by Alexandra Zapruder.

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    Zadie Smith Goes Dancing

    In depicting the nuances of social division, Sam Sacks writes, Zadie Smith has few peers. Reviews of Smith’s fifth novel, “Swing Time,” and “Judas” by Israeli writer Amos Oz.

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    On the Road With Dylan

    Robbie Robertson’s life, from backing up Bob to a bitten-off nipple to “The Last Waltz.” Wesley Stace reviews “Testimony,” Robertson’s memoir.

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    The Birth of the Modern Navy

    The battle at Hampton Roads in 1862 ended a thousand-year tradition of wooden warships. Jonathan W. Jordan reviews “Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History” by Richard Snow.

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    Six Hundred Tons of Imperialism

    In November 1839, England’s Laird shipyard launched the world’s first sea-going iron warship, HMS Nemesis.

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    The Lord of ‘Civilisation’

    Kenneth Clark’s 1969 BBC television series was itself a rich contribution to Western civilization. Dan Hofstadter reviews James Stourton’s new biography of the brilliant British polymath.

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    Oscar Wilde, From Riches to Rags

    The more closely one examines the writer’s family history, the more it starts to resemble a tragedy in which the same events keep repeating like a compulsion or a curse. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst reviews “The Fall of the House of Wilde” by Emer O’Sullivan.

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    The Endurance of Marina Abramovic

    When she was a girl, Abramovic’s parents did the wounding. In her art, the hurt is ingeniously self-inflicted. Ann Landi reviews ‘Walk Through Walls, the performance artist’s memoir.

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    Why Do We Have Languages?

    For all their variety, languages seem to share a few features. Are they hardwired in our brains? David J. Peterson reviews “Impossible Languages” by Andrea Moro.

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    Pippi Longstocking’s War

    The diaries of Astrid Lindgren, the future author of the “Pippi Longstocking” books, are sensitive, wide-ranging and offer a rare Scandinavian perspective on the catastrophe of the Nazi war.

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    Two Novels of Occupied Europe

    Hitler’s war is still live history, and novelists Roy Jacobsen and Craig Larsen find it rich territory in which to explore moral ambiguity.

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    Social Media Sci-Fi

    In Connie Willis’s “Crosstalk,” you communicate all the time without saying a word.

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    Five Best: David Bodanis

    The author of “Einstein’s Greatest Mistake” on genius.

  • November 5

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    The Savagery of the Civil War

    The four-year war that remade our nation is cloaked in romanticism. A new, unsentimental history aims to capture the Civil War as it really was.

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    Democratizing the Oxford English Dictionary

    In “The Word Detective,” the longtime editor of the OED takes readers inside the lexicographical revolution.

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    When England Admired Islam

    Without Muslims there would be no sugar or Shakespeare in England. Jerry Brotton’s “The Sultan and the Queen” traces Islam’s profound influence over English culture during the half-millennium between the Crusades and the rise of the British Empire in the Middle East.

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    The Definitive Texas Singer-Songwriter

    A biography by Guy Clark’s longtime publicist captures the life and music of the great musician.

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    Five Best: Peter Fritzsche

    The author, most recently, of “An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler” on World War II diaries.

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    The Best New Children’s Books

    A witty, enchanting reprint of T.H. White’s 1946 novel “Mistress Masham’s Repose” features a 10-year-old orphan, a ruined English estate and a settlement of Lilliputians.

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    Time to Discover Javier Marías

    Sam Sacks reviews “Thus Bad Begins,” which delivers all of the novelist’s trademark qualities: chewy philosophical meditation, elegant prose and the suspense of an old-fashioned potboiler.

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    A Capitol Hill Mystery

    “The People’s House” emerges as a sleeper candidate for political thriller of the year.

  • October 29

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    No First Lady Like Eleanor Roosevelt

    Two new books bring to life the grandmotherly nonconformist who flew with Amelia Earhart, championed the Tuskegee Airman and the Spanish Republic, and fell in love with a crackerjack reporter named Lorena Hickok.

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    Jane Austen’s ‘Lost’ Contemporaries

    Seven women writers who deserve shelf space next to Austen and the Brontë sisters. Alexandra Mullen reviews “Not Just Jane” by Shelley DeWees.

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    Eating Opium and Writing Intoxicating Prose

    In “Guilty Thing,” her entertaining, intellectually brilliant biography of Thomas De Quincey, Frances Wilson is just as truthful and evocative as her subject.

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    The SAS: Who Dares Wins

    The initial recruits to Britain’s Special Air Service were a diverse lot—they included a hotel porter, an ice-cream maker, an amateur boxer and a tomato farmer—united by their ability to think and act as individuals. Roderick Bailey reviews “Rogue Heroes” by Ben Macintyre.

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    The Poetry of Bonefishing

    It’s winter in Montana and Chris Dombrowski is nearly broke when he gets a call: a free trip to the Bahamas. John Gierach reviews “Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World’s Most Alluring Fish.”

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    The Tentacles of H.P. Lovecraft

    His stories endure because of their globe-trotting adventure, their sense of mystery and terror, and their claims about the true and horrible nature of the world. John J. Miller reviews “In the Mountains of Madness” by W. Scott Poole.

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    The Engine, the Weapon and the Ax of Rock

    Every guitar player will want to read “Play It Loud” twice. The casual fan will find a thrilling narrative that weaves cultural history, musical history, race, politics, business, advertising and technological discovery.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    “The Beach at Night” by Elena Ferrante; “The Bossier Baby” by Marla Frazee; “King Baby” by Kate Beaton; and “Little Big Girl” by Claire Keane.

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    Five Best: Jane Kamensky

    The author of “A Revolution in Color” recommends books about the impact of wartime.

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    The Bad Guy Was a Good Guy

    It’s hard to imagine film noir or the western without Dan Duryea’s presence. Tom Nolan reviews a biography of the actor by Mike Peros.

  • October 22

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    Building a Life Out of a Discarded Diary

    In 2011, Alexander Masters was given 148 moldy diaries that had been found in a Cambridge dumpster. He spent the next five years figuring out who wrote the 15,000-page manuscript.

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    The Truth About Egypt’s Revolution

    Eric Trager’s “Arab Fall” is the definitive history of the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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    The Miracle of Mathematics

    Galaxies, the Big Bang, dark matter, planets, stars and more in “Calculating the Cosmos” by Ian Stewart.

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    Father of the Atomic Age

    Enrico Fermi had just won the Nobel Prize when he showed up at the Navy Department in D.C. to warn of the danger posed by his own recent discoveries in nuclear physics.

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    A Chilling Novel of Manners

    An investor, a chef and a fashion photographer set off for a mountaintop retreat. What could go wrong? Tom Nolan reviews “The Fall Guy” by James Lasdun.

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    Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction

    “The Life-Writer” by David Constantine and “Agnes” by Peter Stamm both explore the steep price of turning back the clock.

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    Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books

    Carson Ellis’s ‘Du Iz Tak?’ feels like suspended glee, or a laugh caught halfway in the throat.

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    Five Best: Richard Greenberg

    The Tony Award–winning playwright and author of “Rules for Others to Live By: Comments and Self-Contradictions” on city life.

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