RealClearBooks - Book News, Book Reviews, Publishing Industry Aggregator

Is Sam Levinson crying? From where I was sitting, it certainly looked like it. We were in a dark soundstage on the Warner Bros. lot in... Read More

Angela and Marcus Reed live in a small Ohio town, in a neighborhood strung together by seemingly endless cul-de-sacs and perfectly manicured... Read More

Here’s an idea for a game show. It’s called “Materialists on Mushrooms.” A bunch of hardheaded scientists gather in a... Read More

For a long time, I did not read Proust. I never imagined what it would be like to read Proust, the way one imagines, in that strange almost... Read More

In my regular life I am a statistician. I am not a fancy statistician, but I do have a bachelor’s degree in the subject, some sense of... Read More

For the first time in seemingly ages, books are dominating the cultural conversation. Recent memoirs by Lindy West, Lena Dunham, and Belle... Read More

The Guardian has published a clickbait list of the 100 Best Novels. The 100 best novels, that is, insofar as translation into English permits... Read More

One might say that the topic of modernity is what’s wrong with modernity. The fact that the word infests the titles and subtitles of so... Read More

Author Allie Rowbottom didn’t watch porn until she was 20. With roommates and a bowl of popcorn, she slid in a DVD starring blue-movie... Read More

Hilary Mantel sold an awful lot of books, but what is her literary legacy? Since her Wolf Hall trilogy, historical fiction has earned itself... Read More

Growing up, Cara Delevingne always knew she wanted to be a musician. She learned to play the piano and the drums early on, dreaming of one... Read More

At this time last year, the idea of a wide-release feature film-maker cutting their teeth on YouTube was, if not unheard of, certainly still... Read More

Spring is the time of year I buy typewriters. It must be the change of season—green shoots pushing up through the thawing earth, bulbs... Read More

Obsession, the box-office sensation directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, is a sign that the economics of Hollywood are changing, with... Read More

In 2015, I toured the Rust Belt, exploring the ruins of Pittsburgh, Detroit, Youngstown, and Gary. What I saw wasn’t blight, which is... Read More

President Trump jokingly posts a doctored photo of himself leading an alien in chains out of Area 51, while, on a more serious register, his... Read More

Gender relations are tense to the point of hostility these days. Straight men and women are politically and culturally divided. We’re... Read More

Paris in the 1920s — you shoulda been there! At least, that’s the sentiment advanced by the stacks upon stacks of memoirs... Read More

1965 You are born. Your father is not in the delivery room. Your mother leaves the hospital weighing what she weighed before she became... Read More

There is perhaps no greater pleasure in summer than reading a book by a body of water on a perfect 72 degree day with a slight breeze. While... Read More

Imagine if sports journalism were like an actual sporting competition—and the best team wins. In that kind of contest, could any... Read More

“Backrooms” is one of the most unique cinematic events of the year. The film, which opens in theaters Friday via A24, was... Read More

hen HBO’s Euphoria premiered in 2019, critics were equal parts entranced and horrified. Some praised creator Sam Levinson for his fresh... Read More

During my years of coming up in publishing as an editor and writer, I made quite a few dollars writing term papers. I am sure few readers... Read More

You've maybe seen Johnny Yong Bosch before, but chances are greater you've heard his voice. After starting his career with TV's Mighty... Read More

"Too often academic treatises these days are insufferably 'woke' or even unreadable, thanks to their postmodern jargon," explains the author... Read More

Writing in 1833, Justice Joseph Story, one of the greatest jurists of the early republic, warned against a dangerously exaggerated conception... Read More

One Christmas, the writer and critic Emily LaBarge was vacationing on a coral island in the Atlantic when six masked men with guns and... Read More

“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” — John Lewis Oil... Read More

Two short story collections by trans men were released in 2025, CRAWL by Max Delsohn and Realistic Fiction by Anton Solomonik. (A disclosure:... Read More

For a few short weeks in March, the internet was ablaze with rumors. Comment sections were littered with fruit emojis, speculation, and fiery... Read More

Henry Farrell and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi begin their new paper, “AI as Social Technology,” by noting that “debates about... Read More