The Future of Life book by Edward O. Wilson
Peter Ibbetson
Environmentalism is a large-scale lesson in sacrifice. Each time conservationists compel us to grudgingly concede a patch of land to nature, we are losers to the earth, which we cherish…
July 2013
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White book by Frank H. Wu
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Yale. I am attending one of the accompanying lectures when a graduate student comes up to me, an Asian American, and asks…
The Procedure book by Harry Mulisch
In the beginning, Harry Mulisch created The Procedure. And though it sounds much like a John Grisham paint-by-statutes legal thriller, it is something with infinitely greater ambition. Mulisch, author of…
Swift as Desire book by Laura Ezquivel
I was able to finish Laura Esquivel’s latest novel only because I loved her previous one, Like Water for Chocolate, a charming magical realist story about unsatisfied desires. Like Water…
Silence in October book by ens Christian Grondahl
The longing for emotional connection and the difficulty of transcending individuality are central themes of Silence in October. The narrator, a forty-four year-old art historian without a name, addresses feelings…
Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems book by Billy Collins
Billy Collins’ poetry has long been described as “accessible”—a term that has been used as both a compliment and a disparagement. There is no doubt that the simplicity of his…
The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time book by George McGovern
As if to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most bitterly disappointed presidential campaigns in history, George McGovern, three-term South Dakotan Senator and one-time Democratic presidential candidate, has…
Iris Murdoch: A Life book by Peter Conradi
The unique magnetism Iris Murdoch’s twenty-six novels exert on critics and public alike lies not solely in the vividness of her characterization and the fecund richness of her plots. Murdoch’s…
The Corrections book by Jonathan Franzen
In a 1996 Harper’s article, then-obscure novelist Jonathan Franzen made what has since become a much-publicized boast. He claimed that his next novel—his third—would combine social commentary with memorable characters,…
Hamlet in Purgatory book by Stephen Greenblatt
For several months after my friend Elizabeth died, when I was sixteen, I would be awakened in the middle of the night by the feeling of a nearby shape. Not…