This reading list features the five nonfiction nominees for the National Book Awards. The winner be announced on November 18, 2015.
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The Politics of Poetry
The New York Times’s poetry columnist on the intersection between poetry and politics.
The Politics of Poetry
The New York Times’s poetry columnist on the intersection between poetry and politics.
By the Reflection of What Is
On the aesthetics, performance, and “majestic wrath” of Frederick Douglass, the most-photographed American of the nineteenth century.
Olive Oil Trouble
Olive-oil fraud was already common in antiquity. Galen tells of unscrupulous oil merchants who mixed high-quality olive oil with cheaper substances like lard, and Apicius provides a recipe for turning cheap Spanish oil into prized oil from Istria using minced herbs and roots. The Greeks and the Romans used olive oil as food, soap, lotion, […]
Unchain My Heart: On the Emotional Effectiveness—and Lingering Sexism—of Jewish Divorce
Sari Botton explores the dark side of a tradition that has for millennia subverted women’s rights.
Can an Outsider Ever Truly Become Amish?
One of the rarest religious experiences you can have in America is to join the Plain.
Unchain My Heart: On the Emotional Effectiveness—and Lingering Sexism—of Jewish Divorce
Sari Botton explores the dark side of a tradition that has for millennia subverted women’s rights.
Rebel Virgins and Desert Mothers
The radical women of early Christianity.
The Broken Pop of James Bond Songs
What can the endurance of the messy, campy canon of James Bond theme songs tell us about contemporary popular music?
