Andrei Codrescu teaches a class, reminisces, howls, and ruminates.

A diverting ramble on the history of the finger.

A sprightly mixture of memoir and history of science.

A new novel by Rick Bass, on fame and its cruel vagaries.

The pleasures of (re-) reading Barbara Holland.

Michael Connelly's dark but hopeful world.

Mary Midgley's tonic against misreading Darwin.

An intensely personal history of a ubiquitous cell line.

How best to respond to the New Atheists.

Emmanuel Katongole's gift to the church.

Justice Stephen Breyer, civics instructor.

Or are they? A sociologist investigates.

Father Tim alert: the second novel in Jan Karon's new series.

The impact of reading on American women of the Gilded Age.

An ecumenical pilgrimage from Erfurt to Rome.

Ernesto Cardenal's meditations on the gospels, handsomely reissued.

The common people who propelled the American Revolution.

Why are city plans unreadable and unworkable?

Charley "Old Hoss" Radbourn and his most amazing season.

German imperial ambitions and Islam, a century ago.