Book Review: The Poems of Jesus Christ
/In a slim new volume, one of our greatest masters of vibrant exegesis gives is the collected poetry of "the invisible poet of the world" - Jesus Christ.
Read MoreBook Review: The Caliph's Splendor
/One of our best popular historians sheds light on the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid, where learning and culture flourished at a time when the West was mired in filth and chaos.
Read MoreBook Review: Kiss of Steel
/The melodramatic first novel in a series set in a vampire-ridden steampunk version of Victorian London
Read MoreNow in Paperback: King Stephen
/Now in paperback: the most comprehensive, opinionated, and even-handed biography poor unlucky oath-breaking King Stephen is ever likely to get - or deserve.
Read MoreCD of the Week: Bononcini
/Norman Lebrecht reviews a new recording of the music of Handel's contemporary Bononcini--but which Bononcini are we talking about? In addition are three notable CDs for John Cage's centenary.
Read MoreBook Review: Reaper
/A fast-paced teen fiction re-imagining of Peter Pan and Wendy and the Lost Boys and Neverland, with a few side-helpings of goth, "Buffy," and a certain boy wizard
Read MoreGuest Movie Review: Lawless
/Hollywood Next Big Things - past, present, and future? - share screen-time in a gritty tale of the Prohibition-era South.
Read MoreBook Review: Legions of Rome
/A comprehensive - and visually stunning - overview of the mighty Roman legions and the world they helped to shape.
Read MoreBook Review: Master and God
/An ambitious historical novel about the dark days of the emperor Domitian by the popular mystery author Lindsey Davis.
Read MoreNow in Paperback: Hadrian
/A lavishly illustrated biography of the Roman emperor Hadrian - now in bookstores in paperback - takes readers inside the world of an empire (and its ruler) undergoing one long identity crisis
Read MoreNow in Paperback: Arguably
/Now in a bright yellow paperback: a generous helping of essays, provocations, and tirades by the late Christopher Hitchens.
Read MoreOther Than Faith
/What does the soul-searching writer do when the concept of the soul--to say nothing of God--has lost its currency? Two new confessional novels try to navigate that uncharted territory.
Read MoreWe Must Worship
/The first biography of David Foster Wallace is out and it's hardly the sort of book he himself would have written -- or read. Might this be for the best?
Read MoreBooks Before and After
/It’s a bridge, a barrier, and a burden; it’s used in the bedroom, the kitchen, and the outhouse. Leah Price helps us think again about what we can, should, or want to do with that most fetishized of objects: the book.
Read MoreWagner's Inferno
/The worlds of fine art, porno, hollywood, meth addiction, and quality lit cross and recombine in Bruce Wagner's latest Dead Stars. We made this culture, now what do we make of it?
Read More‘Stop, traveler, and piss!’
/Lord Castlereagh lives in infamy as the target of the Romantic Poets' most vicious insults, but one biography tries to salvage his reputation. Was the statesman a scourge of liberalism or pragmatist of Enlightenment ideals?
Read More'By hunger I mean more'
/Myth and fairy tale seem as far from true as can be, but Feng Sun Chen's poetry uses them to explore the necessities and unavoidable transformations of life.
Read MoreAttainted: The Life and Afterlife of Ezra Pound in Italy
/Pound wrote The Pisan Cantos on toilet paper while prisoner in an open-air metal cage during WWII, and he spent many of the following years in mental hospitals. "I can get along with crazy people," he quipped. "It's only the fools I can't stand."
Read MoreThe Gods Themselves
/How is Hollywood like a clever boy who never tries? In every way imaginable. The story of two Total Recalls is a sad one indeed.
Read MoreIn Praise of the Practitioner
/Was General Zhukov the greatest general to order mass executions of his own soldiers? Was he the single most decisive factor in beating Hitler? A new biography opens more questions than it answers.
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