RealClearBooks - Book News, Book Reviews, Publishing Industry Aggregator

I have written a fair number of provocative things over the years, but nothing that’s stirred up as much evident unease in people who... Read More

Much has been said about a Christian revival among Gen Z. Some statistics are disputed, but there does seem to be something happening. I am... Read More

I’ve never been called “trailer trash”, but I did live in a trailer in Northeast Georgia in my early teens.  Read More

Everybody’s been talking and writing about the enormous box-office success and staying power of Backrooms andObsession, two low-budget... Read More

I. 1978, Kenyon College, sophomore year. Bill Watterson is lying on his dorm room bed, staring up at the ceiling. He hasn’t yet... Read More

It was as close a call as they come. Late in the fourth set of the 2026 French Open final, Germany’s Alexander Zverev unleashed a serve... Read More

In 1971, planes carrying millions of financial and administrative records—order forms, charge slips, telephone system files, oil well... Read More

Twice a year, every January and June, certain corners of the internet populate with photographs of extravagantly dressed men on the streets... Read More

The best depiction of a dinergoth I’ve seen in media is from the most dinergoth show in the world: an American animated web series... Read More

Just 19 miles from the beach in Humen, southern China, where the burning of opium in 1839 started the Opium Wars and China’s... Read More

WHEN WILLIAM GIBSON was starting out as a short story writer, he made a point of avoiding what he later called the “paper... Read More

For decades, the Mexican-born journalist Alma Guillermoprieto has been respected, if not revered, as the preeminent English-language... Read More

I dream of the version of myself who looks cool taking a phone call. That suave type of effortlessness, a little lean in my stance that would... Read More

Pentecost has come and gone. On some liturgical calendars, the time is called “Sundays After Pentecost” or some variation. Most... Read More

Do aliens walk among us? Has the government been covering up their existence for decades? In recent years the question of extraterrestrial... Read More

Early on in Opera Fever, her newest collection of poetry, Chelsey Minnis asks: “Is this a poem or the back of a... Read More

I first came across Jim Shepard’s work in County Highway last year, a story titled “The Sons of Liberty.” I’ve never... Read More

The small city, I’ve always believed, is most conducive to feeling the intensity of a championship run. Take a city with less than one... Read More

It was a typically balmy April evening, and Braden Peters, age twenty, had fainted again. Music pulsated faintly over the speakers of the... Read More

Over the years, writers from around the world have tried their hands at using soccer as a backdrop for memorable fiction. Tonally speaking,... Read More

NAPOLEON’S FAVORITE BOOK of poetry was a fraud. He carried it through the Italian campaigns and still had it with him, years later, in... Read More

Last week I wrote about the art of the American Revolution, mostly John Trumbull’s. The best of it is at the art gallery at Yale, then... Read More

The night before my father drove three hours to Southern Illinois to do battle with a demon bird, he handed me a three-ring binder. Inside... Read More

It’s World Cup time again, and Americans from Bangor to Batavia don’t even bother to stifle their quadrennial yawns, while more... Read More

n December, the New York Times published a feature titled “Should You Be Able to Ask a Doctor to Help You Die?” It included the... Read More

Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea embodied professional wrestling at its best and at its worst. He could thrill, inspire and amuse... Read More

There are precious few “ambiguous monument[s]” still standing. Many periodicals like Lionel Trilling’s beloved Partisan... Read More

Ever since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, I’ve been eager to read novels that explore what COVID was, and continues to be like. At the... Read More

The American Founding was an epic, earthshaking, history-making event that still reverberates through the ages. For close to half of our... Read More

There’s hardly a ruler in the world who would identify as fascist, but if you trust the mainstream media, you will assume fascism is on... Read More

Where were you in ’62?  Regardless of your answer to that question, author James Ellroy offers a more exciting alternative in his... Read More

A pair of articles about Columbus, Ohio were published last week that shed light on growing societal inequality in a “K-shaped”... Read More

Toni Morrison has lately been bestowed with a dubious distinction: the patron saint of cancel culture. Beyond her cutting remarks about... Read More

What if your favorite thing in the world was in the hands of a ghoul? Like the damsel in King Kong’s hand, the FIFA World Cup is a... Read More