Books, Arts, and Culture

The cult of individuality was born amid a melding of minds. Meldings must be preceded by meetings, of course, and the meetings took place in Jena,...

The French anthropologist Nastassja Martin is lying on a misty Siberian steppe, surrounded by “wads of brown hair stiffened by dried blood.” While she waits for...

A few years ago, while doing research in southeastern Kansas, I stopped in Independence, a metropolis of around 8,500 on the Verdigris River, and paid a...

Ten years ago China was in the midst of what was being touted as a remarkably predictable and peaceful transfer of power—proof that its authoritarian system...

In 1326 the women of Florence petitioned the Duchess of Calabria to ask her husband the duke to relax legislation preventing them from wearing false hair,...

The summer after our college graduation, a few friends and I decided to pool our money together and find a stage big enough for our real...

Today’s edition of Daily Deals is sponsored by Mia Sheridan’s New York Times bestselling BookTok sensation Today’s Featured Deals $2.99 The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie...

Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel, Best of Friends, explores how a long, complicated friendship is shaped and tried in tumultuous political landscapes. Maryam and Zahra are unlike...

Transcendent Kingdom is one of those rare books that is about so much, and yet fits together flawlessly. Yaa Gyasi tackles science, faith, work, addiction, grief,...