In Colonial South Carolina, the settlement of Fount Royal awaits the arrival of a magistrate from Charles Town who will decide the fate of an accused witch, Rachel Howarth. The year is 1699, and settlements on the edge of the wilderness... Read More

Though the media goes to town on each new drink or drug craze as though it were unique in human history, large-scale destructive binges are nothing new, and neither is governmental response via largely unworkable and often... Read More

“I petition not for my own life, for I know I must die, [but that] if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be shed, which it undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and the course you go in,” said Mary Esty in her second... Read More

During the middle of the nineteenth century, communication between eastern Russia and its claims in westernmost Siberia was slow; in fact, “the quickest way to get from Petersburg to Kamchatka was by taking a ship across the Atlantic... Read More

In the early winter of 1863, a young Union soldier in a letter home mentioned a comrade who had taken ill: “The other night the Corporal had a baby, for the Corporal turned out to be a woman!” The now-unidentified woman from New... Read More

For most, sitting down with a cup of coffee and the newspaper is the only way to start the day. But while many have decried the capitalization of coffee, which has changed a twenty-five-cent cup of joe into a three-dollar double-shot... Read More

Like Kafka’s The Trial or Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, this novel is a deceptively straightforward puzzler that yields no certain solution. Smith, the single-name protagonist, is so ordinary in behavior and aspirations that it only... Read More

What makes A.J. Lewinter run? That’s the question that both American and Russian intelligence agencies ask themselves in this Cold War thriller. While attending an academic conference in Tokyo, American ceramic engineer Lewinter... Read More