Review: Elizabethan drama (and fiction)

by Greta Gaffin December 11, 2025December 11, 2025

In her debut novel ‘Lightborne,’ Hesse Phillips portrays a world of intrigues swirling around Christopher Marlowe and his London circle.

Arts & Culture, Books

Review: The return of Thomas Pynchon

by Eric Vanderwall December 11, 2025December 11, 2025

A kind of maximalist profusion of detail and incident characterizes ‘Shadow Ticket,’ though this new novel from Thomas Pynchon might also be categorized as zany neo-noir—or slapstick noir—for developing the noir tropes of the 1930s and 1940s in a less hardboiled, wackier direction.

Arts & Culture, Books

Review: The drama of Dostoyevsky

by LuElla D'Amico November 13, 2025November 13, 2025

Józef Tischner remains virtually unknown in Western classrooms, despite being one of the pre-eminent voices in 20th-century Catholic thought. The new edition of ‘The Philosophy of Drama’ in English might help change that.

Arts & Culture, Books

Review: Chris Hayes on the war for our attention

by Marcus Mescher November 13, 2025November 13, 2025

In his new book, Chris Hayes argues that our attention is not just the most fundamental human need; it is also our most important resource.

Arts & Culture, Books

Review: The moral authority of John Lewis

by Paul James Macrae November 13, 2025November 13, 2025

David Greenberg has produced a biography of John Lewis that, if not quite definitive, is still the gold standard by which all subsequent biographies will be judged.

Arts & Culture, Books

Review: A first look at an intriguing new pope

by Natalia Imperatori-Lee November 13, 2025November 13, 2025

Christopher White’s ‘Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy’ presents readers with a substantive, engaging portrait of where things stand right now in a church, and a world, increasingly marked by polarization, authoritarianism and violence.