The Last Renaissance Man
Ely Callaway went from running the Burlington textile company to founding ultra-successful wine and golf businesses—all while hiding a lifelong secret
Reality Check
From the French Proverbe to the English Experiment, a new coffee-table book surveys the avant-garde journals that paved the way for the 1920s’ Surrealist movement
Elephant Man
The secret history of the Asian elephants that Belgium’s Leopold II dispatched to Africa in service of his ruthless colonial vision
Churchill’s Angels
How a secret W.W. II–era British spy ring fought the Nazis from New York’s Rockefeller Center—and how a female agent almost lost her life in the process
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss 75 newly reissued editions of Georges Simenon’s detective novels, featuring the French inspector Jules Maigret
E. A. Hanks
Tom Hanks’s daughter makes her literary debut with a revelatory memoir
Terroir Terror
A former sommelier at a four-star New York City restaurant recalls a harrowing sexual assault she experienced behind the scenes of the fine-dining world
Hee-Haw, Taylor Swift!
It’s hard to recall a time when the singer wasn’t topping charts and bringing home Grammys. But her success was far from a sure bet
Requiem for a Continent
Ahead of Earth Day, photojournalist Guillaume Bonn’s haunting images expose the dark side of Africa’s wildlife havens, which are increasingly falling victim to unchecked industrialism
False Prophets
How an investigation into a Mormon murder spree led one author to uncover the lurid world of America’s New Age movement—cult leaders, reincarnation, QAnon, and all
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a mountain climber’s account of sailing from Maine to Alaska, an examination of the air we breathe, and a look back at J.F.K. and Nikita Khrushchev’s Cold War–era diplomacy
Palm Springs Eternal
Two new coffee-table books capture the timeless allure of Palm Springs, a favorite destination of Sinatra and Capote and a birthplace of modernist architecture
Private Predicaments and Natural Disasters
Meghan Daum wrote a book called The Catastrophe Hour. Three months before it was published, her house burned down.
The Mother of Surrealism
How one woman born into a world on the brink of turmoil inspired Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, André Breton, and the love of her life, Salvador Dalí
A Forgotten Master of Pulp Fiction
The only thing more noir than the work of writer Cornell Woolrich may have been his own life
Editor’s Picks
This week, don’t miss a history of Russian espionage, a window into the world of snakes, and a curated guide to the best of international cinema
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
Flower Power
A Dior designer’s take on floral arrangements, a visual history of the rose, and a gardening guide by Martha Stewart … Ring in spring with three new coffee-table books
One Hundred Years of Gatsby
Editions of The Great Gatsby—which achieved popularity only after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s death—abound, but the mysteries surrounding the Great American Novel endure
