BY KURT ANDERSEN RANDOM HOUSE, 2020 If you like conspiracy theories, Kurt Andersen has a good one for you. Once upon a time there was a well-functioning democratic society that valued fairness, opportunity, and public... Read More

BY RICHARD WRANGHAM VINTAGE BOOKS, 2019 Already in the preface, Richard Wrangham’s The Goodness Paradox put a smile on my face. Wrangham there advocates the position that humans are naturally capable of both good and... Read More

With the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death Friday of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the idea of any semblance of balance on the high court seems remote. However, as put forth in Adam Cohen’s... Read More

BY BRIAN GREENE KNOPF, 2020 It doesn’t get much more ambitious than this. In Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe, Columbia University physicist and mathematician... Read More

BY COLUM MCCANN RANDOM HOUSE, 2020 As was ably displayed in his previous novels and stories, Colum McCann is a writer of true literary dexterity. In 2003, still in his thirties and having published his... Read More

EDITED BY SEAN WILENTZ LIBRARY OF AMERICA, 2020 Conspiracy theories are the last refuge of the status quo—its last line of ideological defense. “It’s not that our institutions are bad,” a conspiracy theory promises, “It’s... Read More

EDITED BY MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI, SKYE C. CLEARY, AND DANIEL A. KAUFMAN VINTAGE, 2020 How to Live a Good Life is not an overview of world religions and philosophies—rather, it’s intended to be an anthology that... Read More