Books

Argentinians look on as Marta Minují's 1983 Parthenon of books is removed with a crane. The artist will recreate her installation on a grander scale in Germany next year.

An Artist Is Building a Parthenon of Banned Books

More than 100,000 books will become a monument to intellectual freedom in Germany next year

Tourists and Cubans gamble at the casino in the Hotel Nacional in Havana, 1957. Meyer Lansky, who led the U.S. mob’s exploitation of Cuba in the 1950s, set up a famous meeting of crime bosses at the hotel in 1946.

When the Mob Owned Cuba

Best-selling author T.J. English discusses the Mob's profound influence on Cuban culture and politics in the 1950s

The original Frankenstein didn't create a bride for his creature–and with good scientific reason.

Scientists Find That Frankenstein’s Monster Could Have Wiped Out Humanity

Thank goodness his creator never finished his proposed girlfriend

Five Things to Know About Evangelical Cartoonist Jack Chick

The controversial artist died after 50 years of publishing comics

Harry and the Potters live in concert in 2007.

A Brief History of Wizard Rock

This Halloween, check out a genre devoted to Harry Potter's Wizarding World

Portrait thought to be Christopher Marlowe

What to Know About Shakespeare's Newly Credited Collaborator Christopher Marlowe

Textual analysis convinced the editors of <i>The New Oxford Shakespeare</i> to make Marlowe a co-author on the "Henry VI" plays, parts 1, 2 and 3

A rare book depicting the sea monk by Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) in the Smithsonian Libraries dates to 1554.

Renaissance Europe Was Horrified by Reports of a Sea Monster That Looked Like a Monk Wearing Fish Scales

Something fishy this way comes

In her new book, the acclaimed Thunder & Lightning: Weather, Past, Present and Future, Lauren Redniss is intrigued by how people have coped with, survived, or failed in extreme weather situations.

How the 2016 MacArthur Genius Award Recipient Lauren Redniss Is Rethinking Biography

The visual biographer of Marie and Pierre Curie turns to her next subject, weather, lightning and climate change

Chicago gangster Al Capone wearing a bathing suit at his Florida home. Ca. 1929-31

Seeking the Humanity of Al Capone

Through interviews with his descendants, one biographer sees the family man behind the infamous gangster

The Curious George series has sold 10,000 times the initial print run.

When Curious George Made a Daring Escape From the Nazis

The authors of the children's book series fled wartime France with the manuscript tied to their bikes

Hello, I am goat.

What Living Like Goats and Badgers Can Teach Us About Ourselves

Two Englishmen won the Ig Nobel Prize for eating grass, earthworms and worse in the name of science

All aboard the book train

This Speedy, Wall-Crawling Conveyor System Will Now Deliver Books at the New York Public Library

Like a robotic, book-carrying train

This book of Grimm's Fairy Tales is entirely written using words with one syllable.

Channel Childhoods Gone By With This Digital Archive of Victorian Children’s Books

From nursery rhymes to religious lectures, this digital archive shows how kids read in a bygone age

Scientists Virtually Peek Inside Ancient Biblical Charred Scrolls

A completely burned Biblical text is now readable

H.G. Wells was one of the first science fiction writers.

The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True

Born 150 years ago, H.G. Wells predicted, and inspired, inventions from the laser to email

Oscar Wilde spent two years in what was then called Reading Gaol.

A British Jail Is Paying Artistic Tribute to Oscar Wilde, its Most Famous Inmate

Patti Smith, Ai Weiwei and others envision what it's like to be <i>Inside</i>

George Richmond made this chalk portrait of Brontë when she was 34 years old.

Visit the Manuscript of 'Jane Eyre' in New York

The handwritten novel is in the United States for the first time—along with an exhibition of artifacts from Charlotte Brontë’s brief and brilliant life

For sale: a home with a bookish past.

You Could Own F. Scott Fitzgerald’s House

Live in the Victorian rowhouse where a career was born

A new imaging system could help people to read books without touching them.

This Camera Uses Radiation to Read Closed Books

No need to open a book to read past its cover

Four Finds from University of Kansas' Collection of Radical Zines

The university's Solidarity! Radical Library boasts a collection of almost 1,000 alternative papers

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