Beneath the Byline: Interview with journalist Nat Rubio-Licht on Orange Blossom Ordinary, a review for new books

Elizabeth Stice reviews "The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian" by Emile Chabal (Belknap Press, 2026). Both a towering public intellectual and a famous public communist, Hobsbawm ...

The Tumult Between the Storms: William Skiles reviews "Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe" by Katja Hoyer (Basic Books, 2026). Hoyer examines the interwar years through the lens of a single, sign...

Penguin Cerise: Travel and Adventure

Four people were aboard the single-engine plane when it went down in a cornfield near Carvers School Road in East Troy at about 1:30 p.m.

Far from being irrelevant to the pursuit of personal ambition, criticism is a proving ground for thinkers and writers. It has been formative for generations of intellectuals. Sharpen your skills: read...

Classical Athens was a polis, but so was a tiny Arcadian town such as Orchomenos. In the second century AD, the obscure...

Michael Jimenez reviews "Lou Reed: The King of New York" by Will Hermes (Picador, 2023). From troubled teen to rock and roller emeritus, Lou Reed led a dramatic life, always anchored in the city of Ne...

Sarah Linville reviews "Exit Party" by Emily St. John Mandel (Penguin Random House, 2026). New fiction from Emily St. John Mandel, out September 2026.

Join us for an online conversation to honor Wendell Berry's memory by discussing his essay. Our Book Club Editor explains why.

An interview with Michael Childers about his new book, "The Mountains are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park" (University of Nebraska Press, 2026). It's a book about Yosemite...

Johnna Ryan reviews "Miracula: Weird and Wonderful Stories of Ancient Greece and Rome" by Paul Chrystal (Reaktion Books, 2025). This book looks at the classical world almost through the lens of "horri...

Michael Jimenez reviews "Warhol’s Muses: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine" by Laurence Leamer (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025)

Elizabeth Stice reviews "The Fires of Moloch: Anglican Clergymen in the Furnace of World War One" by Timothy Larsen (Oxford University Press, 2025). During the Great War, seventeen British chaplains c...

It would be hard to imagine the existence of Front Porch Republic without Wendell Berry. FPR is a project that does not compute.

Words and images from "passionate spectators." Inspired by Charles Baudelaire. For the curious observer. Postcards from life. The tradition of the flaneur continues in the twenty-first century. "An Ar...

Geoffrey Reiter shares about the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith and how he used to find out about books back in the day.

What does it mean to care for our loved ones as they are dying? Why might one choose a natural burial? Joseph Orso's new book explores all of that and takes a critical look at our society and its rela...

Interview with Amy Gaskin, photographer and author of "Marilyn Forever! Marilyn Monroe—A Symbol of Hope" (Roche, 2026). It's the hundredth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's birth and this book is all ab...

In our polarized times, people have recognized that somehow everyone seems to like Dolly Parton.

Keitlyn Alcántara is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Indiana Bloomington. She is also the author of "An Archaeology of Milpa Cultures: Maize and Ecological Worldbuilding in...

Elizabeth Stice reviews "The University: A History in Stone, Silk, and Blood" by William Whyte (Harvard University Press, 2026). A history of the physical university, a narrative of materials from the...

Christian McNamara reviews "This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History" by Beverly Gage (Simon & Schuster, 2026). Gage sees in the approaching semiquincentennial an opportunity to “step ...

The city of ancient Corinth, across the canal and through the fields.

They tread a landscape existentially threatened by human wreckage yet are drawn to their fellow species, intriguing and strangely self-destructive. They decipher human scents, collaborate with peop…

This review has been around for two years now. What keeps it going? The love of the game. We're here for books, authors, and ideas. We hope you enjoy it.

Joel Tannenbaum reviews Tana French's new novel, "The Keeper" (Viking, 2026).

Book one in the U.S.A. trilogy

“I was surrounded by phonies… They were coming in the goddam window.” * Seventy-five years ago today, The Catcher in the Rye first hit bookshelves across the US, and people still have some pretty s…

Beneath the Byline interview with Atlantic journalist Nancy Walecki on Orange Blossom Ordinary, a review for new books.