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Arts & Culture / Books

Our shelves are always full of children's books.

Welcome to Just One More Story: A Blog Highlighting the Best in Kid’s Books

Our goal is simple: to offer up an unfolding guide to irresistible reads—books that will keep kids up at night, reading by flashlight under the covers

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Because You Never Know Where the Night Will Take You

Flannery O’Connor, chronicler of the American South, knows what real lady when she sees one

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Spinning off a Comic With a Reference Book

In a new web comic series from “This is Indexed” artist Jessica Hagy discovers new ways of looking at famous quotes

John Howard Griffin, left in New Orleans in 1959, asked what "adjustments" a white man would have to make if he were black.

Black Like Me, 50 Years Later

John Howard Griffin gave readers an unflinching view of the Jim Crow South. How has his book held up?

Some of the greatest writers in history have had works lost over time.

The Top 10 Books Lost to Time

Great written works from authors such as Shakespeare and Jane Austen that you’ll never have a chance to read

Author Daniel Eagan

Your Ticket to Reel Culture

The blog where nothing’s off limits, and nothing’s sacred either. Today’s classic may have been yesterday’s bomb

Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw

Summer Reading List: Seven Tasty New Titles

The common thread among these recent releases is that the best food stories are really about people

Books for Dads Who Love to Cook (Or Want to Learn)

Our 21st century culture is encouraging men to dispense with old gender roles and crack out the pots and pans

Though admired for his essays, his fiction and revisions of William Strunk's Elements of Style, it is Charlotte's Web that keeps his name before the public, generation after generation.

How E.B. White Wove Charlotte’s Web

A new book explores how the author of the beloved children’s book was inspired by his love for nature and animals

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Agatha Christie on the Big and Small Screen

Even though Dame Agatha may not have enjoyed adaptations of her mysteries, audiences have been loving them for decades

By the mid-20th century bookmobiles had become a part of American life, with more than 2,000 plying our inner cities and rural roadways.

Long Overdue, the Bookmobile Is Back

Even in the age of the Kindle and the Nook, the library on wheels can still attract an audience

Unlike Anne Frank's diary, the graphic biography by Ernie Colón and Sid Jacobson covers the period before and after she and her family went into hiding.

A New Look at Anne Frank

Two comic book veterans—who authored the graphic adaptation of the 9/11 Report—train their talents on the young diarist

Autobiographies invariably distort, insists author Paul Theroux, at his home in Hawaii.

The Trouble With Autobiography

Novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux examines other authors’ autobiographies to prove why this piece will suffice for his

Copies of Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" are put on display in a bookstore in New York.

Five Fake Memoirs That Fooled the Literary World

Fiction was stranger than truth in these examples of authentic autobiographies that were anything but that

Smithsonian magazine's 2010 Notable Books for Children.

Smithsonian’s 2010 Notable Books for Children

In our annual tradition, we present some of the best that children’s literature has to offer this year

Latino writer Martín Espada is one of many mentioned in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature who say Walt Whitman influenced them and consider him as a godfather.

What Defines Latino Literature?

In compiling the latest anthology in the Norton series, professor Ilan Stavans researched the themes explored by Latino authors

The messages received by Pearl Curran would ultimately total millions of words, including a well-reviewed novel and poems that were anthologized.

Excerpts From Patience Worth’s The Sorry Tale

Pearl Curran began channeling messages from Patience Worth in 1913 by means of a Ouija board.

Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond

Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife, channeled a 17th-century spirit to the heights of 20th-century literary stardom

For Smithsonian's September issue, author Gioia Diliberto took on the story of Pearl Curran and her spirit writer Patience Worth.

Gioia Diliberto on “Ghost Writer”

The human race "has not been elevated" over the past 40 years, Carl Hiaasen says.

Carl Hiaasen on Human Weirdness

The satirist talks about the “curve of human weirdness” and the need for public outrage in the political arena

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