Poor innocent Lady Jane Grey has been an ostentatious martyr to the Protestant cause for centuries; a new book tells her brief but familiar life story as continues.
Read MoreA Year with the Tudors II: Have You Heard It?
/A new book on the famous Tudor dynasty promises that most alluring of all perspectives on royalty: the back-stage details. But can it succeed? A Year with the Tudors continues.
Read MoreA Year with the Tudors II: “You Are My Grace”
/Jane Seymour is in many ways the most elusive of all the wives of King Henry VIII, dying just weeks after giving the king his longed-for male heir. A new novel delves into the human connection between Henry and his third wife.
Read MoreKeeping Up with the Windsors: Family Drama
/A lavish new production dramatizes the tensions between royalty and personhood in the House of Windsor. Steve Donoghue reviews The Crown.
Read MoreHis Majesty, the Not Excessively Cowardly
/He's forever linked in history with his punning nickname, but a new biography shows there was more to Æthelred than being "Unready"
Read MoreNo Further Arrests Have Been Made
/The serial killer who stalked the streets of London in 1888 and became immortal under the name Jack the Ripper is the subject of a sumptuous new collection of fact and fiction.
Read MoreSingle Occupancy, Lots of Sunlight, Water Included
/For a century, humans have been searching for any sign of extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise. A new book tells the story of that quest - and keeps its geeky hope alive.
Read MoreSuffer the Little Children
/According to a new book, not only did God design life, but deep down inside, we all know it. Steve Donoghue remains unconverted.
Read MoreLet's All Meet at the Mahalalel Mall
/A thorough and even-handed new book gives readers a tour of the "Creation Museum" in Kentucky - and warns not to dismiss its dangers too readily.
Read MoreThe Skin Crowd
/A sumptuous new book lays a vast roll call of frogs before the reader and opens a window onto the strange world of the world's most popular amphibian.
Read MoreThe Lost Boy
/A new book studies the history of copyright and the life and legacy of Aaron Swartz, one of copyright's groundbreaking interpreters for the new century.
Read More'Tis the Season
/Years after the "New Atheism" heyday, a new book by an old hand takes up the atheist cause with renewed urgency.
Read MoreGenerals in Dark and Snow
/Late in 1944, the defeated Nazis staked everything on one last throw of the dice, a massive assault on the Allied forces in Belgium. Antony Beevor's latest book tells the famous story of the Battle of the Bulge.
Read More“I am eager to play chess – I have mastered nine skills”
/At the beginning of the 19th century, a small trove of elaboratedly carved chess pieces was uncovered on a remote beach - a lively new book traces the history and strange charisma of the Lewis chessmen.
Read MorePainful to Nice Feelings
/He sailed around Cape Horn and wrote a classic about it, and he fought for the downtrodden in Boston courts for thirty years - he was Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and he's the subject of a thought-provoking new biography.
Read MoreThe Book and the Boy
/A thousand years ago, a refined lady at the Japanese Court wrote the first and one of the greatest novels of all time, The Tale of Genji; Dennis Washburn does the latest translation of this immense work, with stunning results.
Read MoreNo Doubters in the Shipyards
/Celebrated biographer H. W. Brands has written the first full-dress of Ronald Reagan since the former president's death in 2004 - but does Reagan elude him, as he has so many biographers? Steve Donoghue reviews.
Read More'I'm the Top Goddess – How Could I Fail to Make Trouble?'
/Renowned classicist and historian Peter Green has at last produced a translation of the Iliad - and it comes with its own Greek Chorus. Steve Donoghue investigates.
Read MorePress Enter
/Author Jacob Silverman contends in his new book that the intrusions of social media into our private lives has reached sometimes intolerable extents. But what does he mean by "intolerable"? And who is he counting as "our"?
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