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Arts & Culture / Books

This portrait of Patti Smith, a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith, was taken in 1976, a year after Horses, Smith’s breakout album.

Poetry Matters

Poet and Musician Patti Smith’s Endless Search in Art and Life

The National Portrait Gallery’s senior historian David Ward takes a look at the rock ‘n’ roll legend’s new memoir

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

What to Read, Watch and Download Before Your Trip to Venice

Know before you go

Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, the titular "Martian" who gets left for dead on the red planet.

The Secret of “The Martian” Success? Scientific Peer Review

Andy Weir’s tale of a stranded astronaut got its start as a blog, complete with reader comments that helped shape the plot

Alice with Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Disney's 1951 film

After Giving Us a New Spin on Oz, Gregory Maguire Takes on Wonderland

Alice is 150 years old, and the world is still wondering about her

Scaled back so no two books share a page, the library still has 10 to the power of 4,677 books.

This Digital Library Contains Every Phrase That Could Ever Be Uttered

Inspired by an essay by Jorge Luis Borges, computer programmer Jonathan Basile has created a “Library” of Babel

Hemingway enters New York Harbor with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, aboard the ocean liner Paris on April 3, 1934. He described her as “clever and entertaining and full of desire.”

Hemingway in Love

In a new memoir, one of Hemingway’s closest friends reveals how the great writer grappled with the love affair that changed his life and shaped his art

Innovative Spirit Health Care

Six Children’s Books That Use Psychological Techniques to Help Kids

The sleep-inducing “The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep” has become a mega bestseller. But it’s not the only story to lean on psychology

A Bengali edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The beloved children's book by British scholar Charles Lutwidge Dodgson has been translated into every major language and numerous minor ones, including many that are extinct or invented.

The Mad Challenge of Translating “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Explore the linguistic tricks used to make Lewis Carroll’s puns, parodies and nonsense accessible in hundreds of tongues

Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster’s first book, was published in 1961 and came about accidentally, through procrastination and boredom.

Why Milo’s Sunrises Are a Symphony of Color in The Phantom Tollbooth

Author Norton Juster says one boon to his magical writing is that he was born with synesthesia and hears colors

Melville joked that Dana’s descriptions of Cape Horn “must have been written with an icicle.”

Before Moby-Dick, There Was “Two Years Before the Mast”

This salty memoir by Richard Henry Dana Jr. was one of America’s first literary classics

Lee's Maycomb, indelibly evoked in the novel that sells a million copies annually, endures in the small-town reality of Monroeville.

What’s Changed, and What Hasn’t, in the Town That Inspired ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Traveling back in time to visit Harper Lee’s hometown, the setting of her 1960 masterpiece and the controversial sequel hitting bookstores soon

The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I

An international bestseller, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was banned and burned in Nazi Germany

Chasseur, Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, France

Relive the Battle of Waterloo With These Astonishing Portraits of War Reenactors

Photographer Sam Faulkner shoots a portrait series that gives a face to the more than 200,000 soldiers who fought in the historic conflict

A display of Jim Beam bourbons at a Kentucky distillery.

What Makes Bourbon Uniquely American?

A new book examines everything that makes the spirit special to the United States

An early draft of the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Personal Writings of Arthur C. Clarke Reveal the Evolution of “2001: A Space Odyssey”

Works donated from the author’s archives in Sri Lanka include letters to Kubrick and an early draft of his most famous novel

A stunning, modern wing of the Royal Library of Copenhagen, added in 1999.

The World’s Most Interesting (and Accessible) Library Collections

From the Magna Carta to Winnie the Pooh, what you can see at some of the world’s great libraries

It's time for the Romance Novel to get its due as an influential genre in the literary canon.

Why Can’t Romance Novels Get Any Love?

The genre is long overdue to be the focus of serious study from academics

Livraria Lello, Porto, Portugal

Charming and Unusual Bookstores Around the World

Curl up with a new book—or catch a reading or concert—at these thriving independent bookstores from Mexico City to Melbourne

“The Booths had an inherited strain of darkness in them,” an acquaintance of Asia’s wrote in the foreword to her memoir.

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

The Closest Source We Have to Really Knowing John Wilkes Booth Is His Sister

In a post-assassination memoir, Asia Booth Clarke recalled her brother’s passion, his patriotism and his last words to her

What little-known facts could you learn about FDR?

Ten Fascinating Presidential Facts to Impress on Presidents’ Day

Learn a new side of the Commanders-in-Chief, from whiskey seances and magazine cover boys

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