The Light at the End of the Tunnel
How did a few German students manage to dig a tunnel under the Berlin Wall?
Short List
What to read this week, from a history of a secret Nixon meeting to an exploration of French colonialism in Congo and a look back at Bernini’s Rome
Lost in Translation
The moment Japan opened its doors to the West, in the late 1800s, was the moment many of its traditions disappeared. A new volume brings them back
Family Business
To write his second novel, Atticus Lish asked himself, “What hurts?”
A Hello to Arms
Ernest Hemingway: renowned novelist, bullfighting aficionado, and … Spanish guerrilla fighter?
Family Feuds
The story of famed U.K. department store John Lewis rivals that of the Murdoch clan in its similarities with Succession
Inside Afghanistan
At the core of the current Afghanistan disaster is the West’s misunderstanding of a country and its people. These books offer a good place to start
The Art of Subtlety
To attract readers but stump libel lawyers, 20th-century magazine writers alluded to sordid gossip instead of printing it
The Way of the Jackal
Before Edward Fox made the Jackal a household character, Frederick Forsyth wrote the book. Fifty years on, The Day of the Jackal still thrills
The Wonderful Wizard of Dyson
Eight questions with the inventor James Dyson, who has a new memoir, on electric cars and the thinking behind the $399 hair dryer
Short List
What to read this week, from a history of British musical theater to an account of the World Trade Center’s rebuilding and an inside look at the deep sea
Working Girls
A former U.S. Army major general brings the untold stories of the women who changed the course of World War II to light
The Eye of the Needle
Young dressmakers deported to Auschwitz turned a fashion salon into a hub of resistance
Not So Normal People
The characters in Sally Rooney’s latest novel are worlds apart from the Deuxmoi-obsessed millennials to whom it’s catered. We’ll all read it anyway
A Tall Order
Photographs by Joe Woolhead chronicle the demise of the World Trade Center and the building of the new one