Her Nature Was Future
Ange Mlinko : Poetry
The intimate friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson takes wing in two new books.
2008
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Naipaul's Darkness
Scott Sherman
Biographer Patrick French offers a vivid, sometimes enthralling portrait of a deeply enigmatic writer.
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Walter Benjamin Forever
Noah Isenberg : Philosophy
Following the quirky, revolutionary life path of one of the most celebrated twentieth-century intellectuals.
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A Hungry Mind
Paula Findlen : Non-Fiction
Ingrid Rowland's Giordano Bruno rediscovers the Renaissance philosopher and heretic.
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An Unlikely King
Bernard Avishai : Middle East
An authoritative new biography of Jordan's King Hussein offers an absorbing diplomatic history of the Middle East.
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The James Gang
Brenda Wineapple : Books, Literature, & Ideas
In Henry James and his family, biographers find a fascinating story of dynastic melodrama.
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Green Days
Anson Rabinbach : Foreign Leaders & Political Figures
The biography of Joschka Fischer tells the story of postwar Germany.
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Bella's Way
Nona Willis Aronowitz : Feminism & Women
They just don't make women politicians like Bella Abzug anymore.
2007
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Pointe Work
Nureyev: The Life brings new focus to an iconic figure of modern ballet.
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Play It (Over and Over Again)
Ben Ratliff's not-quite biography of John Coltrane considers the jazz legend's enduring influence.
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The Imperfectionist
Reconsidering the life and legacy of avant-garde artist and poet Francis Picabia.
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Company Man
Martin Duberman's biography of Lincoln Kirstein is a case study of the relationship between art and power.
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Iraq's Founding Mother
A biography of Gertrude Bell investigates the woman who created Iraq out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
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The Wharton School
A new biography describes how Edith Wharton transformed her obsessions into stories of loss, regret and entrapment.
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At a Loss for Words
Michael Anderson : African-Americans
Ralph Ellison was eager to be counted in any political cause--except those surrounding race.
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Ill Will
The most durable piece of Nazi propaganda may yet turn out to be the belief that Leni Riefenstahl is an artistic genius.
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A Free Man
Madison Smartt Bell's new biography of Toussaint Louverture explores the complexities of the man who created modern Haiti.
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Take the Money and Run
New biographies of Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon depict the two primeval capitalists in all their contradictory complexity.
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Made in USA
Perry Anderson : United Nations
Two books about Kofi Annan illuminate the controlling relationship between the US and the United Nations.
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Empire Fall
Christian Parenti : Journalists & Journalism
A biography of Bernard Fall examines the life of the man who laid the foundations for contemporary war reporting.
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The Strains of Inspiration
The Friendship describes how Wordsworth and Coleridge's fiercely uneven relationship affected their lives and work.
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Before the Law
Vivian Gornick : Judaism & Jews
Isaac B. Singer: A Life fails to fully illustrate the complexity of the writer's struggle with his heritage.
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The Thought Experimenter
A new biography of William James portrays a man who made a brilliant career of asking tough questions.
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The Close Reader
Stefan Collini : Public Figures & Intellectuals
William Empson's writing shaped modern criticism. A new biography restores him to his proper eminence.
2006
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A Life of His Own
Victoria Glendinning's biography of Leonard Woolf looks at a remarkable public intellectual whose life and work were eclipsed by his more famous spouse.
This week: Imagining a new new deal, with Howard Zinn, Frances Moore Lappe, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Eric Schlosser and...FDR himself. Plus: Ennis Carter and Stephen Duncombe on the political propaganda legacy of the WPA. (13mb mp3)
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