Archive
More than thirty years of First Things articles at your fingertips.
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Articles
Homer’s Reach
Homer and His Iliad by robin lane fox basic books, 464 pages, $32.50 The Iliad by homer, translated by emily wilson w. w. norton, 848 pages, $39.95 The Iliad...
Zero Gravity History
The World: A Family History of Humanityby simon sebag montefioreknopf, 1,344 pages, $45 Simon Sebag Montefiore’s The World: A Family History of Humanity presents three burdens. The first: At...
Melancholic Verses
Run and Hideby pankaj mishrafarrar, straus and giroux, 336 pages, $27 Twenty years after publishing his first novel—years he spent establishing himself, in incisive, often fearsome essays and reviews...
Culture of Competition
Little Platoons: A Defense of Family in a Competitive Age by matt feeneynbasic books, 303 pages, $28 Were we carrying Matt Feeney’s new book around with us in striving-class Toronto...
Nordic Penelope
Vowsby sigrid undsettranslated by tiina nunnallyminnesota, 336 pages, $17.95 Oh, to be married in the Middle Ages! Your parents would select your spouse. Relatives and the local lord would...
Papa Don’t Preach
The Lying Life of Adultsby elena ferrante translated by ann goldsteineuropa editions, 336 pages, $26 For about three years, I read fiction on my phone. I’d never done so...
Strategic Long-Term Propaganda
Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold Warby duncan white custom house, 800 pages, $32.50 In the opening lines of Cold Warriors, Duncan White notes that “between February...
Wonder Is Critical
I finished teaching a university course in faith and ideas a little while ago by administering individual oral exams to forty first-year students. The exams took place in a...
Having a Baby at the End of the World
Future Home of the Living Godby louise erdrichharpercollins, 288 pages, $28.99 Never trust the teller, trust the tale,” D. H. Lawrence famously declared. Keep that in mind when it...
Big Mullah
2084: The End of the Worldby boualem sansaltranslated by alison andersoneuropa editions, 240 pages, $17 Sleep soundly, good people, everything is sheer falsehood, and the rest is under control.”...
Five Grueling Days of Joy
When the woman came for our daughters, we were crowded around a small round metal table, eating damp French fries and day-old bagels. It was early evening, and we’d...
Scout’s Grown Up
Go Set a Watchman by harper lee harpercollins, 288 pages, $27.99 It might be the greatest American literary controversy of recent years: In summer 2015, millions of excited readers...
American Heraclitus
The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915–1964 by zachary leader knopf, 832 pages, $40 Saul Bellow had a cat named Rufus. He learned from Ralph Ellison...
Write Away
The most electrifying reading experience I’ve had this past year came 656 pages into Donna Tartt’s recent novel, The Goldfinch. A twenty-first-century young American’s adventure story, its action moves...
Jesus Lovers
The Book of Strange New Things? by michel faber ?hogarth, 512 pages, $28 At last, someone has written the great interplanetary Christian missionary novel. Perhaps you weren’t aware that...
