Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Non-Fiction

This week's selections include The Women With Silver Wings, Tombstone and The Restaurant.

Books of the Month

A 2,000-Year History of Restaurants and Other New Books to Read

The fifth installment in our weekly series spotlights titles that may have been lost in the news amid the COVID-19 crisis

This week's selections include The Betrayal of the Duchess, Anonymous Is a Woman and Nerve.

Books of the Month

The Science of Fear, the Royal Scandal That Made France Modern and Other New Books to Read

The fourth installment in our weekly series spotlights titles that may have been lost in the news amid the COVID-19 crisis

Capitol Hill Books is one of several independent bookstores  selling "mystery bags."

Covid-19

Local Bookstores Offer ‘Mystery Bags’ of Quarantine Reading

Buyers can ask for a mix of their favorite genre or seek booksellers’ recommendations

This week's selections include Hidden Valley Road, The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria and Coffeeland.

Books of the Month

Coffee’s Dark History, the Sinking of the World’s Most Glamorous Ship and Other New Books to Read

The third installment in our weekly series spotlights titles that may have been lost in the news amid the COVID-19 crisis

Education titles are doing particularly well, with sales of children’s nonfiction education, reference and language arts books up 12 percent from the same period last year.

Education During Coronavirus

Children’s Educational Books See Uptick in Sales Amid COVID-19 School Closures

Titles related to “home-life” subjects—like preserving and canning—have also experienced a boost in sales

This engraving by Paul Revere offered a specific argument about what happened that day in Boston.

A Fresh Look at the Boston Massacre, 250 Years After the Event That Jumpstarted the Revolution

The five deaths may have shook the colonies, but a new book examines the personal relationships forever changed by them too

The Landsdowne portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart

A New Book About George Washington Breaks All the Rules on How to Write About George Washington

Alexis Coe’s cheeky biography of the first president pulls no punches

The top ten include To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hungry Caterpillar and The Cat in the Hat.

Trending Today

New York Public Library Announces Its Most Borrowed Books of All Time

The list, dominated by children’s literature, spans 125 years of reading

Cool Finds

‘A Clockwork Orange’ Follow-Up Found in Burgess Archives

‘The Clockwork Condition’ was intended to be a philosophical examination of themes raised in his most popular and problematic novel

“Part of [Wolfe’s] skewering of society was to also be absolutely his own man,” says National Portrait Gallery curator Brandon Brame Fortune. “For him, that meant wearing this white vanilla colored three-piece suit wherever he went.”

Five Things to Know About Tom Wolfe

The late author had an undeniable influence on American writing

Which Books Do Americans Take on Vacation?

Our city-by-city breakdown uncovered some surprises

Cool Finds

The Science of the Red Sea’s Parting

It is physically and scientifically possible for a body of water to part

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

Samuel Johnson

Doctor Feelgood

Stricken by “vile melancholy,” the 18th-century critic and raconteur Samuel Johnson pioneered a modern therapy

None

World’s Unlikeliest Bestseller

Fifty years ago a brewer’s bet spawned a compelling compendium of feats, stunts and trivia

None

Plutarch’s Exemplary Lives

An ancient Greek wrote the book on biography then and now

Page 2 of 2