Mother courage“Ducks, Newburyport” is an ingenious feat of storytellingLucy Ellmann’s novel is not so much a stream of consciousness as a vast delta of the mindprint-edition iconOct 24
Ode to joyA single market in culture emerged in the 19th centuryNew technologies brought people and ideas from across Europe togetherprint-edition iconOct 24
The broken ladderIn the past, America was not as unequal as it has becomeThree new books explore the obstacles to a more egalitarian futureprint-edition iconOct 23
Hidden talentThe first “Last Supper” painted by a woman goes on public displayPlautilla Nelli’s masterwork was created in a convent more than 450 years agoprint-edition iconOct 23
What had to be doneWhen fascists and Jews battled on the streets of LondonIn the late 1940s, as now, people were meant to trust the machinery of democracy. The 43 Group decided they couldn’tprint-edition iconOct 17
The enemy withinJohn le Carré’s 25th novel is blisteringly contemporaryIf “you spy for long enough”, says its hero, “the show comes round again.” Not in Mr le Carré’s storiesprint-edition iconOct 14
JohnsonHow America saved old-fashioned English grammarCan I get a Coke? Or have I gotten one already?print-edition iconOct 16
Big game huntedGertrude Legendre led a charmed life—until her capture by the NazisThe heiress’s fellow prisoners included Charles de Gaulle’s sister and two former prime ministers of Franceprint-edition iconOct 10
The library of iceAn expedition reveals the perils of reading Dostoyevsky in AntarcticaHoled up for a polar winter, a group of explorers got through a lot of booksprint-edition iconOct 10
Bad companyThe astonishing and violent rise of the East India CompanyWilliam Dalrymple’s history poignantly evokes India’s embattled Mughal rulersprint-edition iconOct 10
Axes of evilLies, damn lies and chartsAlberto Cairo explains how to avoid being dupedprint-edition iconOct 10
The food of loveA new orchestra seeks harmony in the CaucasusIts young players are drawn from all sides of the region’s multiple conflictsprint-edition iconOct 10
Unfinished businessThe promise and shortcomings of the 13th, 14th and 15th AmendmentsThe amendments passed in the wake of the civil war were a constitutional revolution, but an incomplete oneOct 7
Always with usCharles Booth’s quest to fathom poverty in Victorian LondonThe resulting maps are mesmerising in their detail and diligenceprint-edition iconOct 3