-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of April 8, 2013
This week: Lovecraft gets graphic, the rise of the American novel, and what nonhuman species reveal about being human. Plus, getting held hostage in a small town.
-
The 10 Best Small Towns in Books
Mount Judge, Pennsylvania. Oberlin, Ohio. Splendora, Texas. What other small towns were put on the map because of books?
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of April 1, 2013
This week, Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen join forces, loneliness in the digital age, and the deadliest jellied gasoline ever. Plus: James Salter's first novel in over 30 years.
-
10 Hidden Places Around the World
Moses Gates's Hidden Cities: A Memoir of Urban Exploration is a wildly entertaining journey beyond barriers to find the off-the-radar places in locales around the world. Gates has some hidden places for you to explore on your next trip.
-
How I Accidentally Wrote a Bestseller
Nick Turse’s Kill Anything That Moves, now in its sixth printing, is an eye-opening look at the U.S.'s “search-and-destroy” tactic employed in Vietnam, but it began 12 years ago with Turse, a PhD student, toiling away in the National Archives. It was there that he found documents (which have since been pulled from the public shelves) that became the inspiration for his book.
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of March 25, 2013
This week, a Catcher in the Rye for Internet youth, the new Zelda Fitzgerald novel, and a must-have Charles Simic collection. Plus: something is below the ice in Antarctica.
-
10 Imaginary Countries in Books
Nabokov, Bellow, Kafka, and 7 other authors who created places so good they seem real.
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of March 18, 2013
This week, what we don't know about memory, rethinking caveman nostalgia, and hidden cities. Plus: Aleksandar Hemon's fist book of nonfiction.
-
5 Writing Tips from Blake Bailey
Blake Bailey is an award-winning literary biographer, penning books on Richard Yates, John Cheever and, in the future, Philip Roth. His newest book is Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson and it's just as compelling as his others. Pay attention, because when an award winner has advice, we should all listen.
-
What Was It Like to Be an Executioner?
A job executing people in the 16th century wasn't nearly as glamorous as you might think. Joel F. Harrington, author of The Faithful Executioner gives us the gory details.
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of March 11, 2013
This week, William H. Gass's first novel in nearly 20 years, cyborg cockroaches, and a roof that changes shape. Plus: one of the most memorable FBI agents since Clarice Starling.
-
Why Did C.S. Lewis Write Narnia?
Concealed religious doctrine or old-fashioned storytelling? Rowan Williams, author of The Lion's World: A Journey Into the Heart of Narnia, picks apart the legendary children's series.
-
10 Food Secrets You Need to Know
Sneaky cheese, how salt is shaped, and what exactly "bliss point" means. Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat, tells you 10 things you need to know about how the food giants are hooking us.
-
Weird America: Ben Katchor's Look at the Side of Life You Never See
Ben Katchor's brilliant new book, Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories, focuses on light switches, roofs, fast-food packaging, trash cans, coffee cups, and dozens more things in life we never really pay attention to.
-
What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About War
Kenneth T. MacLeish's Making War at Fort Hood is a completely different kind of look inside the lives of soldiers and the process of making war--it looks at the normal lives our armed forces are trying to live, the ordinary aspects of a truly abnormal way of life.
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of March 4, 2013
This week, Joyce Carol Oates unleashes the demons, one of the best memoirs of 2013, and a vertical city. Plus: redefining the idea of "Southern identity."
-
This Is the Hardest Math Problem in the World
Ian Stewart is a math genius. For us non-geniuses, he tells us about the hardest math problem in the world.
-
10 Books That Rewrite History
Morrison, Pynchon, Gaddis. What other writers have jolted readers from what they thought they knew about history?
-
PW Picks: The Best New Books for the Week of February 25, 2013
This week, inexplicably hostile badgers, pet polar bears, and goblins. Plus, who is Adele Hitler?
-
10 Classic Books You Read in High School You Should Reread
In Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven't Touched Since High School, Kevin Smokler takes you on a trip down high school memory lane, when you couldn't stand reading As I Lay Dying or Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Or maybe you could, you bookworm. Either way, Smokler gives us 10 books and 10 compelling reasons why you should revisit them.
Browse archive by date:
