"Transit", by acclaimed French novelist and short story writer Abdourahman Waberi, is a timely and politically relevant novel. Originally published in French in 2003, it is his fourth book to be translated and re-released in English and... Read More

From the early days of the Obama administration, Republicans in the Senate have used the filibuster to an unprecedented degree. They deployed the obstructionist tactic not only to hold up major legislation like the Affordable Care Act,... Read More

The United States Supreme Court’s October 2012 term opened with a flutter. Media buzzed about how the high court might rule on two divisive race-related issues: the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action at the University of Texas.... Read More

In modern American electoral politics, “message” has become a convenient shorthand term for both the narrative a politician tries to convey and the verbal and body language he or she uses to convey it. Whether George H.W. Bush’s... Read More

How much of what we think we know of Israel and Palestine corresponds to reality, and how much is fed by distortions? Hillel Bardin’s nuanced account of Israeli-Palestinian peace processes is presented in “a book of contradictions,... Read More

Some writers have a gift for creating cozy scenes and comfortable locales despite a larger context of unease and violence. In her new novel "An American Tune", Barbara Shoup accomplishes this: meticulously establishing pleasant,... Read More

This book is about the evolution of a scientist, the science of evolution, and the evolution of science itself. Rudolf A. Raff, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Indiana University, traces his interest in science to boyhood summers... Read More

“The greatest theme in American literature,” writes Scott Russell Sanders, “is the search for right relations between humankind and nature, between civilization and wildness.” It is a theme central to Sanders’s own... Read More