Books

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

July 2015

The Library Mark Twain Built

The author helped create a library in the last town he called home—and it’s full of great summer reading suggestions

June 30, 2015

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

June 16, 2015

Trending Today

Houghton Mifflin Once Sued Another Publisher on Behalf of Hitler and Mein Kampf

Rival versions of the book once vied for American readers

June 9, 2015

Trending Today

The Independent Bookstore Is Not Dead Yet

Membership in the American Booksellers Association is up

May 29, 2015

Cool Finds

How Our Modern Lives Became Infested With Bed Bugs

After being bitten by the tiny pests, author Brooke Borel set out to learn all she could about her blood-sucking foes

May 5, 2015

Trending Today

The Mystery of Colorado’s “Book Tosser” Has Been Solved

The litterbug blames Amazon, arthritis for his habit of illegally discarding books

April 24, 2015

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

May 2015

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

April 14, 2015

Trending Today

These Were 2014’s Most Challenged Books

Native Americans, Iran and gay penguins top the American Library Association’s Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books

April 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Trouble Remembering Passwords? Charles Dickens May Be Able Help

A programmer has devised a creative “password generation scheme” using A Tale of Two Cities

March 23, 2015

Cool Finds

The Children’s Book That Caused Japan’s Raccoon Problem

When the story of one man’s childhood pet raccoon became a hit in 1970s Japan, it heralded a biological invasion still troubling the country today

March 16, 2015

Why Can’t Romance Novels Get Any Love?

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

March 12, 2015

This Week in Crowdfunding

An Augmented Reality Children’s Book, Bacon Jerky and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Never worry about halitosis again with the Breathometer Mint bad breath tracker

March 6, 2015

Trending Today

Germans Brace for the Re-Release of ‘Mein Kampf’

Is Hitler’s 90-year-old manifesto too dangerous to be on bookshelves?

February 26, 2015

Smart Startup

Building Libraries Along Fiber-Optic Lines in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Washington, D.C.-based startup, Librii, is rethinking what a library looks like

February 23, 2015

Cool Finds

Found: One Lost Sherlock Holmes Story

It was in the attic, my dear Watson

February 23, 2015

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

February 19, 2015

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

March 2015

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

February 13, 2015