Television is more than fifty years old. It is tempting to say that the medium is mature, that its strengths and limitations are understood. The problem with this viewpoint is that it is hard to say exactly what television is. Is it the... Read More

“Why a comfortable family should suddenly pack off across the seas to a rain-lashed chimera in the Atlantic is a question that confounds us still, as does the very essence of this brooding island that inspires, baffles, and wounds with... Read More

In a time when society is preoccupied with the obscenities of war, this book insists on love as a centrifugal force. The editor takes readers on a tour of Latin America, into the cities, small towns, nunneries, and gardens from Cuba to... Read More

“In the region of the unknown, Africa is absolute.” Since Victor Hugo made this comment in the 1880s, thousands of books have shed light on the Dark Continent. Most authors, including the popular recent trio of Alan Moorehead,... Read More

“Writing autobiography allows me to open up a vein of self-scrutiny,” writes the author of this startlingly honest account of one woman’s quest for self-knowledge. From the open vein flows a personal attempt to unravel the... Read More

There is no record of where or when the first boat was built, according to the author. That question is somewhat irrelevant anyway, he points out, since different people in different places gradually developed watercraft, using trees,... Read More

“A big black witch and a little red devil, / Are planning a regular Hallowe’en revel. / Come at 8 o’clock up my dark walk / Wear a costume and don’t dare talk.” That’s the homemade invite sent more than eighty years ago to... Read More

“Orientalism,” the brilliantly colorful art of the 1800s that captured the exotic Orient in striking and fascinating detail, “is ripe for redefinition,” states the author, adding that the initiative requires “a delirious... Read More