Books

Left, Rita Moreno, the Puerto Rican actress who played Anita in the 1961 film West Side Story. Right, the Italian opera singer Giulia Grisi in the 1830s.

An Absolutely Fabulous Celebration of History’s Greatest Divas

This heady, exquisitely delightful new book reveals the power behind the sequins

Looming large on Philadelphia’s Broad Street, a ten-foot-high statue—a gift to the city from the Pennsylvania Freemasons—shows young Benjamin Franklin at his printing press.

Benjamin Franklin Was the Nation’s First Newsman

Before he helped launch a revolution, Benjamin Franklin was colonial America’s leading editor and printer of novels, almanacs, soap wrappers, and everything in between

The title page of one of the Folger’s First Folios.

How the Soon-to-Reopen Folger Shakespeare Library Came to Be

A full 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio will go on view as the renovated Washington, D.C. institution makes its debut

Camp III with Everest rising above the flank of Changtse mountain.

See Photos From the 1924 Mount Everest Expedition That Led to the Vanishing of Two Explorers

A century later, a new book captures the grand scale of the mountain and uncovers more about the expedition and the people at its center

The original illustration for the cover of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone will go to auction in June.

Spellbinding Cover Art for 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' Could Break Auction Record

The original watercolor illustration of a young wizard boarding the Hogwarts Express was artist Thomas Taylor's first professional commission

The wreck of the Isabella and Newton Providence camp, as shown in Charles Barnard's narrative of his experiences in the Falklands, 1829

Why the Wartime Rescue of the Survivors of a British Shipwreck Ended in Betrayal

In 1813, an American sealing vessel, the "Nanina," promised to save the crew and passengers of the "Isabella," even though it was an enemy ship. Here’s how the British brig got stranded in the first place

Lali (played by Jonah Hauer-King) and Gita (Anna Próchniak) in "The Tattooist of Auschwitz," a new mini-series based on Heather Morris' 2018 novel of the same name

'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' Demonstrates the Limits of Holocaust Fiction

A new mini-series dramatizes the best-selling 2018 novel that sparked debate over the line between history and memory

Hazel Ying Lee (right) and fellow pilot Virginia Wong (left)

This Chinese American Aviatrix Overcame Racism to Fly for the U.S. During World War II

A second-generation immigrant, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Chinese American woman to receive her pilot's license

After its century-long disappearance, the book was returned in good condition earlier this year.

Overdue Book Returned to Colorado Library After 105 Years

The Fort Collins library waived the fine, which totaled over $14,000 when adjusted for inflation

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, the real Baron Münchhausen, was a retired German officer who fought with a Russian regiment in two campaigns against the Ottoman Empire.

The 18th-Century Baron Who Lent His Name to Munchausen Syndrome

The medical condition is named after a fictional storyteller who in turn was based on a real-life German nobleman known for telling tall tales

French author Arsène Houssaye wrote the book in 1879, then gave a copy to French physician Ludovic Bouland.

A Book Bound With Human Skin Spent 90 Years in Harvard's Library. Now, the Binding Has Been Removed

In the late 19th century, a French physician took the skin, without consent, from a female psychiatric patient who had died

JBS Haldane and Edwin Martin Case (pictured) experimented on themselves to study the effects of nitrogen narcosis, in which the gas becomes a powerful narcotic drug under increased pressure.

To Help the Allied War Effort, These Scientists Got Drunk on Nitrogen

During World War II, British researchers conducted tests on themselves to gauge how submariners' brains would function at extreme depths

Robert M. Pirsig’s 1966 Honda Super Hawk Motorcycle.

This ‘Zen’ Motorcycle Still Inspires Philosophical Road-Trippers 50 Years Later

Robert M. Pirsig’s odyssey vehicle takes its final ride as it vrooms into public view for the first time ever at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

The Crosby-Schøyen Codex is part of the Schøyen collection, one of the largest private manuscript collections in the world.

One of the World's Oldest Surviving Books Is for Sale

The rare early Christian text was written in a monastery in Egypt between 250 and 350 C.E.

Readers were first introduced to Superman in June 1938.

The First Issue of Superman Just Became the Most Valuable Comic Book in the World

An original copy of 1938's "Action Comics No. 1" sold for a record-breaking $6 million at auction

The handwritten manuscript of The Sign of the Four, Arthur Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel

Arthur Conan Doyle Agreed to Write 'The Sign of the Four' at a Fateful Dinner in 1889

The handwritten manuscript he produced is going to auction, where it could become the most expensive item associated with the mystery writer ever sold

Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir topped the list, followed by George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue.

These Were the Most Challenged Books in America Last Year

Titles with LGBTQ themes dominated the American Library Association's newly released list

The Library Company reading room on Juniper Street in Philadelphia c. 1935, one of the group’s main locations from 1880 to 1935.

How Ben Franklin Invented the Library as We Know It

Books were rare and expensive in colonial America, but the founding father had an idea

Some said the pirate king went to ground in London or Scotland, others that he died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave in Devon. Or was he sipping fine French wine in the hills above Marseille?

The Notorious Pirate King Who Vanished With the Riches of a Mughal Treasure Ship

In the late 17th century, Henry Avery—the subject of the first global manhunt—bribed his way into the Bahamas

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe was the ALA's most challenged book in both 2021 and 2022. 

Book Banning Attempts Are at Record Highs

A new report from the American Library Association found that the number of challenged titles increased by 65 percent in 2023

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