Our Year in Reading 2017
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Open Letters closes its run with our regular year-end feature, as our editors and contributors look back at some of the books that made memorable impressions in 2017.
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OLM Favorites: A Great and Sustaining Mystery
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Anthony Burgess the novelist had dreams of being a composer. He had little success, but along the way he delved deep into the nature and meaning of music.
Read MoreA Boy Who Would Be King
/How did Donald Trump, a vacuous, bigoted sociopath, get to the White House? He did it by being himself.
Read MoreThe Ground Beneath Their Feet
/The promise and the limits of the Arab Spring receive some well-written - and necessarily sobering - reporting in Robert Worth's A Rage for Order. Greg Waldmann reviews.
Read MoreChange the Way They Live
/As Andrew Bacevich relates in his important new book, US involvement in the Middle East has been characterized by confusion, mistakes, and blundering military force. Greg Waldmann reviews America's War for the Greater Middle East.
Read MoreSame Bloody Rhythm
/A new book reminds us that good reporting on the Middle East is more important than ever, and more dangerous.
Read MoreA Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
/Jane Mayer's new book uncovers the overpowering fire-hose of private money now being blasted into the American political system by the robber barons of the new Gilded Age.
Read MoreImminent Threat
/A harrowing new study tries to determine why the myth of torture's effectiveness persists despite all the evidence - and despite a long line of permanently maimed victims. Greg Waldmann reviews.
Read MoreThe Broken Clock
/Controversial former Vice President Dick Cheney and his journalist daughter Liz have written a book claiming that the exceptional nature of American power is being sullied and squandered by the current occupant of the White House. Greg Waldmann reviews Exceptional.
Read MoreNone of the Above
/Political scientist Ian Bremmer's new book looks at the changing nature of American power in the 21st century, but just how many false premises does the book employ?
Read MoreThe Management of Savagery
/Many new books - some excellent, some awful - are now seeking to explain the terrorist group ISIS, but the group's own origins dynamics are dauntingly complex. Greg Waldmann tries to make sense of it all.
Read MoreA Cycle of Horrifying Songs
/Schubert's bleak, tumultuous song cycle, Winterreise, is the subject of tenor Ian Bostridge's passionate new book. Greg Waldmann examines Schubert's Winter Journey, and the trouble with hard-to-love classical music.
Read MoreMembers in Good Standing
/Two books by Mark Leibovitch create a picture of Beltway wheelings and dealings that's almost unbearably incestuous, with virtually no lines drawn between elected officials and profiteering lobbyists. Greg Waldmann plumbs the depths and reports back.
Read MoreFaith-Based Initiative
/In his new book City of Rivals, James Grumet takes a gloomy close-up look at America's deeply dysfunctional Congress and offers some solutions. But are those solutions dysfunctional too?
Read MoreUnwise Counsel
/Leon Panetta, old Washington fixture and former member of the Obama administration, criticizes the president in his new memoir. But does he have anything to say?
Read MoreHidden in Plain Sight
/A new book blames Pakistan for the carnage in Afghanistan. But what does "Pakistan" really mean when its government is so fraught with dissension?
Read MorePashtunwali
/Of all the borders in the world, the Durand line is perhaps the most dangerous. A new book seeks to explain the Taliban, who plague the peoples on both sides of it.
Read MoreThe 5 Commandments
/Major Kolt "Racer" Raynor doesn't salute the U.S. flag - it salutes him. He punches bad guys so hard their grandkids are born with bruises. He garrotted a terrorist using a string made from his own eyelashes. He stars in Dalton Fury's action novel - and if you don't read the book, he'll know.
Read More“There Is No Enjoyment in This Life”
/Iraqi lawyer and former exile Zaid al-Ali writes a bleak, sobering account of the state of his homeland in the post-"Mission Accomplished" era - but is there any reason for hope?
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