RealClearBooks Week of May 11, 2026 Archives

RealClearBooks AM Update

Monday, May 11
The Lone-Star Laments of Kacey Musgraves
Kelefa Sanneh The New Yorker
24 Hours Inside the Cult of A24
Julian Sancton The Hollywood Reporter
The Roosters of Miami, Florida
Alex Perez The Dispatch
On 'Alice, or the Wild Girl'
Kazuo Robinson Los Angeles Review
Happy Meals
Hannah Rowan The New Atlantis
Mortal Kombat Went From National Panic to Camp
Peter Suderman Reason
Melancholy Is a Duty We Ignore
Adrian Nathan West The Metropolitan Review
The Red Pill’s False Promise
Ed Latimore City Journal
Teaching Poetry in the Age of AI
Lindsay Turner The Nation
Is Bobby Cox the Most beloved MLB Manager Ever?
Bob Nightengale USA Today
Jonathan Swift’s Frustrated Humor
Henry Oliver Plough
A Revolution—If You Can Keep It
Tal Fortgang Washington Free Beacon
'Lord of the Flies' Has Been Misunderstood for Too Long
Anthony Breznican Esquire
A Treasure Hidden in Plain Sight
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins Commonweal
Poetry and the Algorithm
Noah Warren Cleveland Review of Books
The Elites, the Popular Classes & ‘The Bad News Bears’
Alexander Riley Chronicles
The Real Women of 'Yesteryear'
Leigh Stein Attention Economy
Ambulance Chasers & Advertising Bliss
David Deavel The Imaginative Conservative
The Death of the Dating App
Andrew King Quillette
25 Southern Works Of Lit Everyone Should Read
Melinda Salchert Southern Living


Tuesday, May 12
Why the Future of College Could Look Like OnlyFans
Jay Caspian Kang New Yorker
The Rise of the Literary Nepo Baby?
John Self The Guardian
A Better Way to Teach Gender Studies
LuElla D’Amico The Dispatch
The Most Exciting Room in Washington
Ron Charles Substack
Spreading the Good News of Nancy Lemann
Jimmy Cajoleas Southwest Review
Let Me Hear Your Heart Beat
Ross Barkan Political Currents
John McPhee’s Defense of the Wilderness
Lance Richardson The New Republic
Did Social Media Kill Girlhood?
Evie Solheim The American Conservative
Serious Reading Was Always a Minority Sport
Joel J. Miller Miller’s Book Review
'Pluribus' Is About More Than Collectivism
Jonathan Miltimore Civitas Outlook
The Hours Rear Up Like Flames
Julia Kornberg Poetry Foundation
Yesteryear: A Chilling Satire of the Empty Self
Serena Sigillito Fairer Disputations
I Want to Live Like Costco People
Jordan Michelman Taste
Lane Kiffin Explains Himself
Chris Smith Vanity Fair
The Hunger for the Real
Christine Rosen Commentary
The Great Zombification
Owen Yingling The New Critic
Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain
Jason Koebler 404 Media
You Will Not Escape the Permanent Underclass
ARX-Han Magazine Non Grata
Will Another 'Miami Vice' Movie Have Anything to Say?
Nick Kolakowski Crimereads
The Surprising Similarities Between the Kardashians and WWE
MJ Corey LitHub
The Wu Tapes
Jeremy Stern Colossus


Wednesday, May 13
What 'The Sheep Detectives' Doesn’t Get About Sheep
Jill Lepore New Yorker
Are the Knicks a Mirage, a Moment, or the Real Thing?
Michael Pina The Ringer
Does Sydney Sweeney Make You Uncomfortable?
Suzy Weiss The Free Press
At Gawker, They Battled a Billionaire
Frank DiGiacomo The Hollywood Reporter
What We Call the West
Nicolás Medina Mora The Nation
Christopher Nolan Has Been Dreaming of 'The Odyssey'
Eliana Dockterman Time
The Clippening
Mia Sato The Verge
LeBron Lost the GOAT Debate
Ethan Strauss House of Strauss
Tony Leung Still Believes in the Movies
Raymond Ang GQ
Doubling Down
Michael Knapp Dissent
Karl Urban Is Ready to Unlock the Next Level
Eric Francisco Esquire
The Ballerina and the Baby
Julie Schechter The Republic of Letters
Living in Public
Jared Henderson Magazine Non Grata
Rara Avis: Professor Finds Harvard’s Faults
John Staddon James Martin Center
Mac Barnett, Come on Down
Meghan Cox Gurdon WSJ Free Expression
George Saunders Never Gives Up On a Character
Kaitlyn Greenidge Substack
Taking the Villain’s Part
Hannah Smart Cleveland Review of Books
You Can’t Trust Anything Anyone Writes
Talia Barnes Persuasion
AI Policy Must Fail Gracefully
Nat Purser Asterisk Magazine


Thursday, May 14
A Fantastically Important Political Novel
Jonathan Leaf RealClearBooks
Your Friendly Neighborhood Newsletter
Kyle Chayka The New Yorker
Tennyson’s Poetic Faith
Sam Buntz First Things
What Is the Schengen Shuffle and Who’s Doing It?
Carole Rosenblat CNN
Normie Transgression
Udith Dematagoda The Metropolitan Review
Joan Didion on The Grateful Dead
Joan Didion POW Magazine
Raphael Goes to Rome, Courtesy of the Met
Brian T. Allen The National Review
Why AI Will Not Replace Human Love
Elena Streett Front Porch Republic
Beautiful Rules
Lola Seaton New Left Review
On Andrés Felipe Solano’s 'Gloria'
Sheila Heti The Paris Review
Disney Is Encouraging and Exploiting the Rise of “Kidults”
Ryan Zickgraf Jacobin
Half-Life: A New Biography of Lawrence Durrell
Michael Thurston The Hudson Review
The Real 'Lord of the Flies' Story Netflix Isn't Telling
Lenore Skenazy Reason
The Devil Wears Prada is The Godfather for Millennials
Henry Oliver Substack
Douglas Stuart’s Best Novel Yet
Ron Charles Substack
Was the American Revolution a War Over Money?
Jeffrey Hummel The Daily Economy
Tabula Raza
Corinne Leong The Baffler
‘The Sheep Detectives’ Review
Sonny Bunch The Bulwark


Friday, May 15
Do We Think Too Much About the Future?
Joshua Rothman The New Yorker
Is the Modern NBA Breaking Its Stars?
Kirk Goldsberry The Ringer
The School Trying to Rebuild Education for an AI World
Maya Sulkin The Free Press
Marcello Hernández Became the Boy Prince of Comedy
Matthew Roberson GQ
Ufos Are America’s New Religion
Diana Walsh Pasulka The Washington Post
The Return of All-American Fiction?
Paul Franz National Review
Why Steve Kerr Stayed With the Warriors
Wright Thompson ESPN
Who Is Bruce Springsteen Preaching To?
Mitchell S. Jackson Esquire
Who Decides What Greatness Tastes Like?
Vikas Khanna Time
The Future of Free Speech
Katrina Gulliver The Freeman
Bob Dylan’s Argument With God
Alex Shephard The New Republic
Suburban Territory
Jackie DesForges Alta
The Sound of Music
Kate Preziosi Chicago Review of Books
Restaurants Are in Their Blue Period
Bettina Makalintal Eater
The Moral and Political Wisdom of C.S. Lewis
Daniel J. Mahoney The American Mind
The Prophet in Your Pocket
Carissa Véliz Aeon
Book Clubs Are for Phonies
Kathleen Stock UnHerd
Joy Williams’ Uncanny Valley
Meghan Racklin Cleveland Review of Books
‘Dutton Ranch’ Review
Angie Han The Hollywood Reporter
Can You Trademark Yourself?
Todd Spangler Variety
Planned Man's Links of the Day
Podcast: Pre-Industrial Life Was Worse by City Journal
Available this week: "Colossus" by Ross Barkan
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