2019 Books of the Year
Great books tell stories. Here’s our pick of vivid and insightful new releases for better understanding America, world events, history, science, and theology
Notebook
Culture
Culture
Culture Notes
I don't want my MTV Plagued by four years of flat ratings, MTV is planning to cut back the rap, grunge, alternative, and non-music programming, in favor of a broader, more eclectic blend of...
Culture
TV: Overrated?
Almost everyone is dissatisfied with the vague, age-based ratings system devised by the television industry in response to political pressure to stop polluting young minds. Parents' organiz...
Culture
Poetic license
If, as G.K. Chesterton observed, anything worth doing is worth doing badly, then the compilers of In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry deserve hearty congratulations merely for compil...
Books
Whither them? Us?
Whither Russia? The transition away from totalitarian communism has, not surprisingly, been a difficult one. How the transition became possible is covered by Oxford's Archie Brown. Mr. Brown calls...
Dispatches
The Buzz (Publick Occurrences)
This Week
Bill and Newt Three days after exposing the Democratic Party's "National Asian Pacific American Campaign Plan," The New York Times celebrated New Year's Eve by calling on Attorney General J...
Quotables
Quotables
You don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbage. JESSE JACKSON, upon learning that Oakland (Calif.) public-school officials had planned to recognize Black English--"Ebonics"--as a s...