Book Reviews

Peter Heather’s Christendom is a colossal book written by a colossus in the field. Aptly subtitled “The Triumph of a Religion,” it covers a millennium, from the conversion of the...

THE ART OF DIPLOMACY: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements That Changed the World, by Stuart E. EizenstatWhen I was growing up in Catholic Ireland, books on moral and theological...

Book title: Weird Fucks Author: Lynne Tillman So much of Weird Fucks is throwaway. The sentences, the sex, the love. The men who float, illusory, in and out of the...

LITTLE POEMS (Everyman’s Library, $18), a new anthology edited by Michael Hennessy, provides a history of short poems since antiquity, from Sappho to Ocean Vuong, a lovely pocket-size volume with...

In their books about refugee resettlement, writers like Anne Fadiman and Dave Eggers have approached this problem by shifting their focus to the bewildering cultural encounters that occur when groups...

LUBLIN, by Manya WilkinsonThree Jewish village boys go to the big city to sell a box of paintbrushes. … You can’t stop me from telling this one because you haven’t...

THE SAFEKEEP, by Yael van der WoudenWhat a quietly remarkable book. I’m afraid I can’t tell you too much about it. Here, though, are some non-spoiling notes on Yael van...

A mysterious new illness arrived from the East, killing young and the old. The rich fled cramped cities as doctors desperately tried new but ultimately useless remedies. The economy faltered....

ON GIVING UP, by Adam PhillipsOne of the most arresting things about Adam Phillips’s work is how it resists easy summary, dissolving into a trace memory the moment you try...