Positively 4th Street
When New York was still called New Amsterdam, a former slave ran a farm on the very terrain that would become the Greenwich Village stomping ground of folk singers and Beat poets
Death Stares on the Tigris
Inside Victorian England’s most intense feud—a backstabbing, betrayal-laden rivalry to decipher the writings of ancient Babylon and Assyria
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a timely look back at McCarthyism, a novel about a couple’s tragic battle with dementia, and a history of the four compass points
Zen and the Art of Being Ruth Asawa
Coinciding with a major San Francisco exhibition, an updated biography of the sculptor chronicles her journey from Japanese-internment-camp prisoner to art-world pioneer
My Adventures in Journalism
In an interview, AIR MAIL Co-Editor Graydon Carter discusses Trump’s short fingers, the enduring magic of New York, and his memoir on the golden age of magazines
Deadly Pleasures to Read and Watch
This month’s best crime-fiction book and TV shows
Loos Woman
The novelist who beat F. Scott Fitzgerald at his own game
Titans at War
A new book tells the inside story of an epic feud between Winston Churchill and U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a novel from a former New Yorker fact-checker, a history of NPR, and a portrait of one of the grandes dames of Impressionism
Signs of the Times
From giant Nazi monsters to Mussolini–loving children, a new coffee-table book collects 20th- and 21st-century propaganda used by regimes around the world
The Yin to John Lennon’s Yang
Half a century after co-writing “Imagine” with her Beatle husband, Yoko Ono is finally getting the recognition she deserves
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss an homage to Siena’s artistic golden age, a new collection of Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, and a charming exploration of why we gossip
Harper Lee, Lost and Found
Eight short stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author, discovered after her death in 2016, are being published for the first time
Top of the Line
Algerian streets, Italian fountains, German tanks … The late New Yorker illustrator and cartoonist Saul Steinberg’s drawings are collected in a new edition of All in Line
Me and Tony Bourdain
At 35, I left my hard-won editor job to become Anthony Bourdain’s assistant. It was the best decision I’ve ever made
Hollywood Confidential
In order to evade racist Hollywood codes and immigration bans, Merle Oberon—the first Asian actress to receive an Oscar nomination—passed as white for almost 50 years
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a new history of the Irish famine, a survey of contemporary architecture, and a portrait of the Edwardian painter John Singer Sargent and his Jewish patrons
Journey to Italy
Five years ago, a Roman photographer set out on his version of Goethe’s Italian Journey. The results of the tour, which took him from Naples to Ponza to Positano, are collected in a new coffee-table book
Joan Didion, Movie Critic
Among the opinions unearthed in her Vogue film columns? She didn’t care for Billy Wilder, had little time for classics such as Casablanca, and was bored by Sidney Lumet