Books

The Salem witch trials are a modern touchstone for US culture and, by extension, anywhere influenced by it. The stuff of notable allegories it is as easy to reach for as 1984 or

The Plantagenets title perfectly describes its scope: an narrative history of the Plantagenet dynasty from its inception to its end, divided into one chapter per ruler. It's a hefty, well-written, and

To describe H is for Hawk as a memoir of the period when Helen Macdonald had to come to terms with the death of her father sells it short. It is many other

An affecting novel with a simple form and story: a tale told in the first person of a man and his wife who come to love a cat, only to lose it. A

Lou Reed: The Life, by Mick Wall, is a book I found by turns frustrating and interesting. About the first quarter of the book is a furious hagiography; furious because the author appears