Review: ‘O Pioneers!’ by Willa Cather
In 1913, The Times declared Cather’s “novel without a hero” to be “American in the best sense of the word.”
Interview: Ralph Ellison
“It is felt that there is something in the Negro experience that makes it not quite right for the novel,” Ellison told us when “Invisible Man” was published in 1952. “That’s not true.”
Review: ‘The Road,’ by Cormac McCarthy
In 2006, our reviewer correctly predicted that this father-son tale would eclipse the popularity of McCarthy’s 1992 hit, “All the Pretty Horses.”
Interview: Gore Vidal
Diane Johnson chatted with the confident writer in 1977, asking him to explain what made him a self-proclaimed “authority” on all things literary.
Review: Books About Babe Ruth
In 1974, Roger Angell celebrated four new biographies of the Bambino.
Review: ‘Persepolis,’ by Marjane Satrapi
A memoir and a history of Iran’s turbulent 20th-century politics, one comic strip frame at a time.
Review: ‘The Makioka Sisters,’ by Junichiro Tanizaki
A classic Japanese novel echoes Jane Austen, with instructive contrasts.
The First New York Times Book Review Best-Seller List
The best-seller lists as we know them today have their roots in the Aug. 9, 1942, issue — but the Book Review has been tracking sales for much longer than that.
Review: ‘The Street,’ by Ann Petry
This classic story of a single mother’s struggle against poverty, published in 1946, would become the first novel by a Black woman to sell a million copies.
Review: ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities,’ by Jane Jacobs
This 1961 masterwork offered new, vibrant ways to think about how city neighborhoods ought to look.
Review: ‘The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book’
When Toklas — Gertrude Stein’s partner — published this cookbook, it was reviewed by Rex Stout, the creator of the food-loving detective Nero Wolfe.
Interview: Eudora Welty
“Really, don’t people know the first thing about the South?” Welty asked The Times in 1970, when her novel “Losing Battles” was published.
Review: ‘Hannibal,’ by Thomas Harris
Eleven years after “The Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter returned. Stephen King called him “the great fictional monster of our time.”
Review: ‘Roots,’ by Alex Haley
James Baldwin, reviewing this headline-making novel in 1976, called it “a study of … how each generation helps to doom, or helps to liberate, the coming one.”
Questlove Looks at 50 Years of Modern Music — and Modern History
In “Music Is History,” the Roots’ frontman tells a story of America that begins in 1971, the year he was born.
Dave Grohl Has Some Writing Advice You Need to Hear
While he was working on his No. 1 best seller, “The Storyteller,” the iconic rocker found the common ground between music and books.
Book Review: ‘Midnight in Washington,’ by Adam Schiff
Schiff’s “Midnight in Washington” is that rare memoir by a politician that actually has something to say.
A Daughter Parses the Life of a Mother Prone to High Drama
“The Book of Mother,” a novel by the French writer Violaine Huisman, depicts a charismatic, unstable woman through her daughter’s eyes.
What George Orwell’s Roses Tell Us About His Politics
In “Orwell’s Roses,” Rebecca Solnit argues that the English writer was driven not merely by political rage but by a love of beauty and nature.
Book Review: ‘Everything and Less,’ by Mark McGurl
Mark McGurl’s “Everything and Less” examines the impact the tech giant has had on literature itself.
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