Richard Bernstein tackles difficult topics in his short study of an extraordinary entertainer, Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson in Lithuania in 1886), and a profoundly important movie—and not just because “The Jazz Singer” is recognized as the “first talkie.”

Chicago has James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan. New Orleans has John Kennedy Toole’s Ignatius J. Reilly. Boston has Edwin O’Connor’s 'Last Hurrah.' And William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle series has “ironweeds” like Billy and Francis Phelan. What, then, is the greatest book ever written about the New York City Irish?

Some of Jimmy Breslin’s best work has now been collected and edited by one of Breslin’s true heirs, The New York Times correspondent Dan Barry.

In 'Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion,' James R. Price and Kenneth R. Melchin argue that we need Sargent Shriver’s “Catholic streak” now more than ever to break through what they call the “fog of the contemporary culture wars."

A quarter-century after its release, Steven Millhauser's 'Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer' shines a harsh but revealing light on some of the 21st century’s most powerful forces and enigmatic personalities.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's new book is a fierce diagnosis of what continues to tear America apart.

In “The Agitators,” Dorothy Wickenden explores 19th-century intersections of class, racism and patriarchy through the lives of the escaped slave Harriet Tubman and the activists Martha Wright and Frances Seward.

Faulkner’s Southern twist on Joycean modernism has made for popular reading in the wake of the U.S. Capitol insurrection and other spasms of red-state rage.

Something has changed for the novelist John Banville in the last 15 years. In a twist worthy of his own byzantine fiction, Banville has adopted a new persona and writing style, and even—perhaps—a changed attitude toward “the Irish thing” he once derided.

Emma Donoghue's new novel unfolds over the course of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day—with a chatty cast of priests, nuns and philosophizing orderlies running about—adding to the sanctified air.