An avid member of the Hitler Youth in 1940s Vienna, Johannes Betzler discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa behind a false wall in their home. His initial horror turns to interest—t
Before acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute became the creator and showrunner of Syfy’s new hit series Van Helsing, he had already adapted Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the stage—with a fierce f
Every encounter begins with a greeting, and different cultures have developed innumerable ways of showing pleasure at someone’s arrival. Humans have been greeting each other for thousands of years, so
Global bee populations have been rapidly declining for years, and it’s not just our honey supply that’s at stake: bees’ contribution to the pollination of various crops is essential to human survival.
Spring 1941 was a high point for the Axis war machine. Western Europe was conquered; southeastern Europe was falling, Great Britain on its heels; and Rommel’s Afrika Korps was freshly arrived to drive
We are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular—flawless. We have becom
Boston, 1870. Photographer Edward Moody runs a booming business capturing the images of the spirits of the departed in his portraits. Despite the whispers around town that Moody is a fraud of the base
After a ferocious early springtime storm, young Norwegian sailor Hans Lyngstrand is shipwrecked in the English Channel near the coastal Kent town of Dengate; he is one of few survivors. Soon after, as
Across the West, anti-immigration populists are tearing a path through the usual politics of left and right. Immigration is remaking Europe and North America: over half of American babies are non-whit
In this shattering conclusion to The Aspect-Emperor books, praised for their “sweeping epic scale and detailed historical world-building” (Grimdark Magazine), R. Scott Bakker delivers the feverishly h
In the years between Germany’s defeat in World War I and the reign of the Nazis, the underground clubs and cabarets of Berlin pulsed with the frenetic energy of rebellion. Suspended on the precipice o
Susan Hill—the Man Booker Prize nominee and winner of the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham, and John Llewellyn Rhys awards—returns with a hair-raising new novel, the ninth book in one of the most acclaimed
April, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four.Forty-three years old and suffering from the tuberculosis that w
The summer of 1958 was a nerve-racking time. Ever since the Soviet Union proved that it possessed an operational intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik, the world watched anxiou
By the author of Duet in Beirut and Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg, Final Stop, Algiers is former Israeli intelligence agent Mishka Ben-David’s most exhilarating novel yet.A tale of international in
Tony Kitous’s twenty-three (and counting!) Comptoir Libanais restaurants in London celebrate the riotous flavors, colors, and textures of Lebanese, Mediterranean, and North African food. Not since the
Most people don’t expect wood to flavor their food beyond the barbecue, if at all, and gastronomists rarely discuss the significance that wood has on ultimate taste. But trees and wood have a far grea
A startling reassessment of Hitler’s aims and motivations, Frederic Spotts’s Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics is a deftly argued and highly original work that provides a key to fuller understanding
Before Call of Duty, before World of Warcraft, before even Super Mario Bros., the video game industry exploded in the late 1970s with the advent of the video arcade. Leading the charge was Atari Inc.,
In his illuminating new book, Douglas McWilliams argues that inequality is largely driven not by a conspiracy of the rich, as Thomas Piketty suggests, but by technology and globalization tat have led
From living in a tin-roofed shack north of Dar-es-Salaam to attaining the British Secret Intelligence Service’s most senior operational rank, Daphne Park led a highly unusual life. In the 1970s, she w
Mark Helprin’s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour—a maître at Paris-S
The first title in Arthur Ransome's classic series, Swallows and Amazons was originally published in 1930 and remains to this day an intrepid story of sailing, exploration, and friendship for children
Scandinavia is the epitome of cool: from IKEA to hygge, Hamlet to the latest bestselling crime novel, the region’s cultural influence is vast. But how valid is this outsider’s view of Scandinavia, and
Among the splendors of tsarist Russia, from art and architecture to literature and music, resides its cuisine—an art in its own right that has delighted and nourished all levels of society for hundred
Kenneth Lonergan’s Oscar-winning screenplay for the critically-acclaimed film Manchester by the Sea is a staggering achievement and an emotionally devastating meditation on grief. Lee Chandler is a br
Two minutes into boiling an egg, the white isn’t set and the yolk is totally raw. After five minutes however, the white is fully set and the yolk slightly runny—a perfectly spoonable, soft-boiled egg.
Through war and plague, revolution and migration, people have always had to eat. Parallel to the history books, a second, more obscure history was being recorded in the cookbooks of the time, which ch
Our best friends, Twitter followers, gal-pals, bromances, Facebook friends, and long distance buddies define us in ways we rarely openly acknowledge. But as a society, we are simultaneously terrified
Sue Hubbard, whose peerless and enduring voice combines the emotional intensity of John Banville and the lyrical evocation of Anne Enright, delivers in Rainsongs an affecting story of transformation.
After five years in New York City, Greg and Steph return to their hometown for their 20th high school reunion and to a dramatic encounter with Kent and Carly, the friends they left behind. Old secrets
When the body of a young woman is discovered in the Lane of Many Heads, an alley in modern-day Mecca, no one will claim it, as they are ashamed of her nakedness. As Detective Nasser pursues his invest
Penny Vincenzi, internationally bestselling author of No Angel, has dazzled readers with her intricately crafted novels for nearly twenty years. She unleashes her signature narrative prowess once more
In 1535, England is hardly a wellspring of gender equality; it is a grim and oppressive age where women—even the privileged few who can read and write—have little independence. In The Butcher’s Daught
In his latest historical novel Ike and Kay, acclaimed author James MacManus brings to life an unbelievably true and controversial romance and the poignant characters and personalities that shaped the
In this vividly fashioned debut, Rachel Halliburton draws from the sordid details of a genuine scandal that deceived the British Royal Academy to deliver a stirring tale on the elusive goal of achievi
When First Lady Michelle Obama approached the podium at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, nobody could have predicted that her rousing and emotional “When they go low, we go high” speech would
The international literary triumph with rights sold in seven countries, Shtum is a powerhouse debut that untangles the complicated strands of personal identity, family history, and lapsed communicatio
In the arc of western history, Ancient Greece is at the apex, owing to its grandeur, its culture, and an intellectual renaissance to rival that of Europe. So important is Greece to history that figure
