Books

Cool Finds

In Brazil, Subway Reading Means a Ticket to Ride

These books encourage reading by doubling as subway tickets

November 25, 2015

Trending Today

A Hemingway Book Has Hit the Paris Bestseller List After Recent Attacks

A Moveable Feast declares that “there is never any end to Paris”

November 24, 2015

Age of Humans

How Globalization and Climate Change Are Taking Away Our Favorite Foods

In a new book, author Simran Sethi argues that we are facing one of the most radical shifts in food ever.

November 23, 2015

How Nantucket Came to Be the Whaling Capital of the World

Ron Howard’s new film “In the Heart of the Sea” captures the greed and blood lust of the Massachusetts island

December 2015

Cool Finds

These French Vending Machines Sell Short Stories

Super-short fiction that’s as good as any snack

November 13, 2015

American Ingenuity Awards

The New Yorker Editor Who Became a Comic Book Hero

The amazing tale of a determined art director who harnessed the powers of the greatest illustrators around the world to blow kids’ minds

November 12, 2015

Cool Finds

A Lost Story by Edith Wharton Has Been Discovered in Yale’s Library

“The Field of Honor” is about a failed marriage during World War I

November 11, 2015

Document Deep Dive

When the Empire State Building Was Just an Architect’s Sketch

How one of the world’s most famous skyscrapers was built

November 10, 2015

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

The Man Who Changed Reading Forever

The Venetian roots of revolutionary modern book printer Aldus Manutius shaped books as we know them today

November 6, 2015

Trending Today

Amazon Just Opened An Actual Bookstore in Seattle

And just like its online marketplace, Amazon’s brick-and-mortar shop aims to shake up the industry

November 3, 2015

Document Deep Dive

The Telegram That Broke News of the Civil War

After Confederate forces seized Fort Sumter, a U.S. Army officer dashed off this message to Washington

November 3, 2015

Cool Finds

A Black American’s Guide to Travel In the Jim Crow Era

For decades, The Green Book was the black traveler’s lifeline

November 3, 2015

Why Marquis de Lafayette Is Still America’s Best Friend

A conversation with Sarah Vowell about her new book, the American Revolution and what we can learn from the Founding Fathers

November 2, 2015

Halloween

The Grisly Details of Early Anatomy Textbooks

These images detail the inner workings of human bodies in all their gruesome glory

October 29, 2015

What Do the Most Innovative Chefs Keep in Their Fridges?

A new book gives a peek inside the home refrigerators—and minds—of some of Europe’s top culinarians

October 28, 2015

Cool Finds

These Brilliant Literary Maps Will Help You Understand Your Favorite Book

A lavishly illustrated atlas for Huckleberry Finn and other classics

October 27, 2015

New Research

27 Percent of U.S. Adults Didn’t Read a Single Book Last Year

This new survey on reading habits isn’t all doom and gloom, though

October 23, 2015

Europe

The Real-Life Places That Inspired Frankenstein

How Mary Shelley used ideas, events and places to invent her famous monster

November 2015

The Science of ‘Little House on the Prairie’

A mutual passion for Laura Ingalls Wilder inspired scientists in unrelated disciplines to investigate events from the famous author’s world

October 22, 2015

Trending Today

Google Books Isn’t Copyright Infringement

A landmark court ruling allows the tech giant digitize library books

October 20, 2015