Best Books
Critics’ Picks: Best Books of 2008
July 12, 2026CLR writers select the best books of 2008.
Non-Fiction Reviews
Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson
July 11, 2026Lincoln came to the Presidency without any real military experience. He had been an Illinois militia...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Fred Pearce
July 11, 2026But Pearce knows more fundamental rethinking will be necessary to keep our species going. “The worst...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Amarcord: Marcella Remembers by Marcella Hazan
July 11, 2026If we are what we eat, then Marcella Hazan, the author of what are often recognized...
Fiction Reviews
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
July 11, 2026That’s it. Truly. That’s the plot. But to say that is all there is to it...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Hollywood Lives: George C. Scott and Tony Curtis
July 10, 2026At the airport, customs agents discovered a bag of marijuana and a handgun inside his baggage....
Fiction Reviews
Baby Jesus Pawn Shop by Lucia Orth
July 10, 2026So let me begin by saying Orth is a very talented writer. She has an eye...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Gaia
July 10, 2026‘Can there have been any more inspiring vision this century than that of the Earth from...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard
July 10, 2026These books are indeed a kind of witty parlor game, certainly. But though Bayard occasionally gallops...
Biography
Casanova by Ian Kelly
July 10, 2026Ah, Casanova. Men want to be him, and women want to be with him. Or is...
Biography
Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America by Meredith Mason Brown
July 9, 2026It was brutal stuff. Massacres, scalpings, crops burned, winters with only salted meat to eat –...
Archeology
Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England by Bruce Redford
July 9, 2026A famous double portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds shows members of the Dilettanti Society sipping away...
Non-Fiction Reviews
What If a Large Asteroid Was Heading for Earth?
July 9, 2026"But then an asteroid 6 miles across – that’s bigger than Mt. Everest! – slammed into...
Great Britain
A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré
July 9, 2026The violent and crude final pages of the book force us to scrutinise our feelings over...
Art
The Drawings of Alfred Kubin
July 8, 2026Kubin had something quite different in mind: with his hallucinatory incantations he was seeking to disturb...
Nature
What’s Killing the Honeybees?
July 8, 2026"So the bigger conclusion is that we have soaked our landscape in toxic chemicals, many of...
Fiction Reviews
Driftless by David Rhodes
July 8, 2026In his first book in more than thirty years Rhodes proves with ease why when he...
True Crime
School Rampage Killers: A Psychological Portrait
July 8, 2026The shooter had convinced himself that killing was gutsy and masculine. Based on his misreadings of...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Love Junkie by Rachel Resnick
July 7, 2026It takes an enormous amount of courage for Resnick to put her life story on the...
Fiction Reviews
Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 by Annie Proulx
July 7, 2026Things are never fine just they way they are in Annie Proulx’s new collection of Wyoming...
Art & Design
Erotic Art of Ancient Pompeii
June 20, 2026A favourite theme which recurred again and again in wall paintings was the satyr creeping up...
Politics
Photo Essay: North Korean Propaganda Posters
July 3, 2026Posters are visual illustrations of the slogans that surround the people of North Korea constantly. North...
Non-Fiction Reviews
George & Jacintha: On the Limits of Literary Biography
June 23, 2026The claim that George Orwell once tried to rape someone received scant attention in the United...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Jennifer Sey on the Harsh World of Elite Gymnastics
June 27, 2026From what I witnessed, and certainly in my experience, many of the high level coaches in...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Battle for Falluja: Photos from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
June 19, 2026The captured fighter claimed to be a student who had gotten stuck in Falluja. A Marine...
Science
Susskind Quashes Hawking in Quarrel Over Quantum Quandary
June 30, 2026"The next generation of physicists and cosmologists will have the fun and excitement of discovering the...
True Crime
Murdered by Mumia: A Conversation With Maureen Faulkner
June 16, 2026"The man lifted his arm and fired a single shot in Danny’s back. Danny was able...
Art
The Drawings of Alfred Kubin
July 8, 2026Kubin had something quite different in mind: with his hallucinatory incantations he was seeking to disturb...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Einstein in Japan
June 30, 2026The cult of Einstein reached the point where university officials in Fukuoka preserved the blackboard on...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard
July 10, 2026These books are indeed a kind of witty parlor game, certainly. But though Bayard occasionally gallops...
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