Embracing cities as permanent, desirable features, "Perfect City" turns a potentially dry urban survey into a heady, thought-provoking tour of eight distinctive cities. Joe Berridge’s "Perfect City" ruminates on the purpose, delights,... Read More

While it was once a hot and avoided workers’ domain, by midcentury the American kitchen had become a “discrete living space: cozy, welcoming, and packed with conveniences.” Sarah Archer’s bright new book "The Midcentury Kitchen"... Read More

Eric Silverstein, a Chinese and Jewish American chef who grew up in Japan and Atlanta before moving to Texas to start a food truck, restaurant, and catering business, draws upon his culturally rich experiences to serve up “modern Asian... Read More

David K. Johnson’s "Buying Gay" is a compelling retrospective of physique magazines, which provided gay men with an outlet in the 1950s and 1960s. The “Physique Era” encompasses the rise and fall of physique magazines from 1951 to... Read More

Nationalism and patriotism are not unfamiliar substances in America’s bloodstream. As Peter Martin’s "The Dictionary Wars" illustrates, such fervor extended into heated debates over English language usage. In its infancy, the United... Read More

The earth provides us with the resources we need to stay alive. Unfortunately, making use of those resources usually involves doing damage—to the animals we sacrifice for food and clothing, and through the environmental degradation we... Read More

Kathleen Sprows Cummings’s thorough and spirited "A Saint of Our Own" looks at the Catholic community in the United States and its desire for an American saint. Well-researched in historical and religious context, the book conveys the... Read More

In 2016, J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy defined Appalachia for many, with Vance lionized as the region’s latter-day prophet. For Appalachians, the book has been much more troubling and complex. "Appalachian Reckoning", edited by... Read More