The Saturday Essay

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    The Need to Read

    Reading books remains one of the best ways to engage with the world, become a better person and understand life’s questions, big and small.

From Review

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

  • Book Reviews

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    America’s Favorite Outlaw

    When Capone faced difficulties, he whined about a ‘rigged’ system. Half the country thought he was a champion of the common man. Bryan Burrough reviews “Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend” by Deirdre Bair.

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    The End of America’s Economic Miracle

    What if those Eisenhower boom times were a one-off phenomenon? What if we should get used to modest long-term growth? Paul Kennedy reviews “An Extraordinary Time” by Marc Levinson.

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    The Best Worst Form of Government

    Democracy’s great success in securing liberty invariably threatens to erode the sense of the common good upon which it depends. Darrin McMahon reviews “Toward Democracy” by James T. Kloppenberg.

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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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    The Best New Children’s Books

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

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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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    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.

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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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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    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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