Page-Turner
Criticism, contentions, and conversation inspired by books and the writing life.
The Agonies of Intimacy
Two new graphic books by Charles Burns capture the pleasures and discomforts of human connection and self-expression.
By Charles Burns
What to Read This Summer
Ronan Farrow, Jia Tolentino, and other New Yorker writers on the classic books that changed their lives.
By The New Yorker
When the Apocalypse Is Just Another Day
In “The Morningside,” Téa Obreht depicts humdrum life in a fallen world, as seen through the eyes of a child.
By Sarah Chihaya
Fifteen Essential Cookbooks
The kitchen guides that New Yorker writers and editors can’t do without.
By The New Yorker
When Preachers Were Rock Stars
A classic New Yorker account of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial recalls a time in America that seems both incomprehensible and familiar.
By Louis Menand
When the World Goes Quiet
“The Hearing Test” probes the inner life of a narrator stricken by sudden deafness.
By Katy Waldman
Percival Everett’s Philosophical Reply to “Huckleberry Finn”
In his new novel, “James,” Everett explores how an emblem of American slavery can write himself into being.
By Lauren Michele Jackson
How Lucy Sante Became the Person She Feared
In her memoir of transitioning in her sixties, the writer assesses the cost of suppressing her identity for decades.
By Emily Witt
The Bartender and the Lost Literary Masterpiece
How a Manchester native rescued “Caliban Shrieks,” Jack Hilton’s working-class opus.
By Simon Parkin
What Turned Crossword Constructing Into a Boys’ Club?
For decades, the pursuit was identified with first-wave feminists and bored housewives. How did it come to be defined by a pervasive gender gap?
By Anna Shechtman