Editors’ Picks

Entering James Joyce: A Four-Book Path from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake

How to Start Reading James Joyce becomes much easier once you stop treating Ulysses as the entrance exam. Begin with…

Dioses útiles English Translation: Why José Álvarez Junco’s Nationalism Study Matters

Dioses útiles. Naciones y nacionalismos, José Álvarez Junco’s 2016 Spanish study of how nations are made, became a conspicuous work…

After the Human Exception: Darwin, Morality, and the Trouble of Descent

Darwin and Human Exceptionalism meet at the point where Victorian moral philosophy became most vulnerable: the claim that conscience proved…

10 Works Sigmund Freud Read and Discussed: From Oedipus to Darwin

Sigmund Freud left an unusually traceable record of his reading because books by other people repeatedly became evidence, adversaries, analogies,…

The Price of a Classic: What Dover Thrift Editions Give—and Withhold

Dover Thrift Editions turned the public-domain classic into a book almost anyone could buy. This Dover Thrift Editions review argues…

The Still Point in Book Lambda: Locating Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover

The doctrine called Aristotle’s “unmoved mover” is not a separate essay. Where to Read Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is chiefly Metaphysics…

Before the Cave: What Plato’s Republic Expects You to Know

Background for Reading Plato’s Republic is less a syllabus than a set of bearings: the Socratic manner of inquiry, the…

The Portable Inferno: Reading Dostoevsky’s Demons on Screen

Annotated print remains the best main format for Demons, while a verified publisher ebook is its strongest portable companion. Is…