Book Review: The Sounding of the Whale
/D. Graham Burnett, a young historian of science, produces a fantastic and important encyclopedic history of the long, torturous, often retrograde progress toward "Save the Whales."
Read MoreCD of the Week - Philip Glass's 9th Symphony
/Philip Glass's ninth symphony has some of the minimalist traits listeners will expect--but also a number of surprises
Read MoreBook Review: The Confession
/In the latest Ian Rutledge mystery, a man walks into Scotland Yard, confesses to a long-ago murder, and shortly afterward is himself found murdered - and the game's afoot!
Read MoreBook Review: Star Trek: That Which Divides
/Kirk and crew must conduct a rescue mission on a planet that disappears every three years - and is set to vanish mighty soon!
Read MoreBook Review: The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens
/A heapingly generous helping of the letters of history's most popular novelist
Read MoreComics: The Children's Crusade
/Not-quite-brothers search for their not-quite-mother in this colorful mini-series, now in a hardcover collection
Read MoreCD of the Week - Rachmaninov's 5th Piano Concerto
/In a clever ploy to extend the copyright of Sergei Rachmaninov's music, Alexander Warenberg has fiddled with the composer's second symphony to create a so-called "fifth" piano concerto. Norman Lebrecht reviews the results.
Read MoreBook Review: Farther Away
/The latest selection of reprints from one of America's most-praised novelists
Read MoreThe OLM Quiz - Mayday!
/Celebrate the merry month of May with a literary quiz from the fiendish Tony Hightower
Read MoreNow in Paperback: The Atlantic and Its Enemies
/A big, pugnacious account of the post-WWII world
Read MoreDeus in Machina: poetic technique in Derek Walcott’s Omeros
/Derek Walcott's long Homeric tribute "Omeros" will likely stand as his masterpiece and reward detailed study for centuries. And as with Homer, even small fragments of the world can yield fascinating insights.
Read MoreAffliction Fiction
/Brian Evenson's work is a violent exploration of a violent medium: language. His new novel Immobility and the stories collected in Windeye continue that journey into dark territory.
Read MoreKeeping Up With the Tudors: Lizard on a Rock
/He survived years of dangerous exile, won his crown on the battlefield, and founded one of the most famous dynasties in human history - and yet we still haven't embraced Henry VII. A spirited biography seeks to change that.
Read MoreFacts, And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them
/Art, Truth, Data, Sex, and Facebook--rabble-roused by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's The Lifespan of a Fact, Max Ross connects them in a key to all nonfiction aesthetics
Read MoreMonumental and Fragile
/No form of literature seems as thoroughly doomed in the 21st century as the printed encyclopedia, but even dinosaurs can have rich and rewarding life-stories. Where did we go, before we all went to the Internet?
Read MoreGhost Town Apostle
/Ken Layne's political writing is sharp and raucus, and a novel about a financially devastated near-future United States would seem like a perfect vehicle for more anger. But though that fire is still there, a gentle-but-compelling spiritualist tone has risen to to the fore.
Read MoreBad for You
/Known as much for how she exited her life as for the poetry she wrote during it, Sylvia Plath remains a polarizing figure in the world of verse. What are we reading, when we subject ourselves to her poems?
Read MoreSTATE OF THE UNION
/a poem
Read MoreChoices at the Event Horizon
/In the latest version of the hugely popular video game - as in real life - you are the living culmination of all your past decisions, good and bad.
Read MoreLOL, SRSLY?
/MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has made a career of joking about easy political targets - so what happens when she tries to deliver a factual inquiry of a serious subject? Nothing funny, as Greg Waldmann discovers.
Read More
