Julia Cooke’s biography of three writers illuminates the profound complexity of women’s lives without apologizing, justifying, or moralizing.

Trevor Jackson traces the “dumb, inhuman logic” of endless growth over hundreds of years, and gestures at a better world.

Small, local growers have long been hailed as the way to improve food. But large companies have the scale to make a bigger impact.

Cuts in publishing and book reviewing imperil the future of narrative nonfiction, and our understanding of the world around us.

Virginia Woolf put forward an enduring vision of women with the space and financial stability to write. But it’s also a sad vision—of isolated writers, cut off from peers or mentors.

Author William Hartung explains why the United States seems perpetually drawn into conflict.

Namwali Serpell’s new book embraces the uneasy, unexpected, and defiant elements of her life and work.

Malcolm Cowley championed Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey—and elevated the status of American writing.

Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery tries to recast a life of privilege in often baffling ways.

Cooperation between Russia and the United States boosted conservation—and a resurgence in nationalism chilled it again.

Historian Richard Bell’s new book traces a global upheaval stretching from Philadelphia and London to Freetown and Madras.

In Marisa Meltzer’s biography, Birkin is not primarily a muse. She is an artist who mixed glamor and humility, courage and vulnerability.

Her very long memoir, Book of Lives, is packed with minute day-to-day detail—but is strangely quiet on a few big subjects.

The far north has long been a region of exceptional international cooperation. But Trump’s designs on Greenland come at a time of growing instability.

Bird by Bird encouraged would-be writers to blast past their hang-ups and embrace “shitty first drafts.” But there’s more to the creative process.

A far from exhaustive guide to the books that our critics dissected, debated, and most admired this year.

Her memoir frequently shows an indifference toward truth, falsity, and meaning. In that way, it’s an artifact of our age.

Life After Cars dares to imagine how different, and enriching, a car-free world could be.

Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is a record of fleeting impressions, irritations, and reflections from the edges of exhaustion.