Books

Eric Foner resurrects the history of the Underground Railroad, its powerful place in New York City, and how it helped Harriet Beecher Stowe and others bring about the war that ended slavery.

Anne Tyler's 20th novel is, like her previous 19, about a mildly dysfunctional Baltimore family of loyal yet infuriating people who love one another, but not always helpfully.

Marie Gottschalk describes an American penal system that has all but abandoned any real attempt to rehabilitate its inmates.

Our spring books issue includes scholars' recommendations of the best recently published books in Old Testament, theology, and ethics.

When Jeanne Bishop learned of her sister's murder, she found herself saying aloud, "I don't want to hate anybody."

Why was the first Gilded Age a time of sometimes violent resistance, while ours is an age of acquiescence? Steve Fraser's answer is twofold: capitalism has changed, and so has the social imaginary that enfolds it.

Just when I was feeling despondent, I was asked to review a book by Luigi Giussani. His rhetoric both bamboozled and mesmerized me.

I kept quiet about my faith for fear of embarrassment. Then I read Anne Lamott, and suddenly I wasn't so alone.

These days, we need a strong current of theological explication of Christian eschatology. Richard Middleton has stepped forward—and his book doesn't even mention zombies.

Richard Hays has said for years that he's working on something about "echoes of scripture in the Gospels." But life intervened, so he has produced this slim volume as an appetizer.

Morton Kelsey showed me that I was under a spell that needed to be broken.

A pet peeve of mine is the pigeonholing of authors—especially the label "nature writers" inflicted on certain writers of immense spiritual power.

Princeton Theological Seminary can be a lonely place for an African American professor. During a difficult period, I saw Isabel Wilkerson on PBS.

I was 29, agonizing over a decision, when I came upon a little book by Robert Ochs.

I read Lauren Winner's new book with the sort of joy one feels when watching someone utterly hit their stride.

Instead of sitting down to rage at a blank page again, I grabbed a copy of Don Quixote. Three days later, the ice of time had cracked.

Study of the Armenian genocide has attracted many fine scholars, but Ronald Suny's book stands out.

When I was 13, my pastor slipped me Glenn Clark's The Soul's Sincere Desire. Within three pages, I knew I had a soul.