editors picks

Beyond the Quarterly: LQ favorites and recommendations

Books

• Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City

  by Greg Grandin

  More than a parable of one man’s arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world, Fordlandia depicts a desperate quest to salvage the bygone America that the Ford factory system did much to dispatch. As Greg Grandin shows in this gripping and mordantly observed history, Henry Ford’s great delusion was not that the Amazon could be tamed but that the forces of capitalism, once released, might yet be contained. Purchase at Amazon.com »

• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

  by Laurence Sterne

  Laurence Sterne’s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate "hero" Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr. Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations. Purchase at Amazon.com »

• They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967

  by David Maraniss

  In a seamless narrative, Maraniss weaves together the stories of three very different worlds: the death and heroism of soldiers in Vietnam, the anger and anxiety of antiwar students back home, and the confusion and obfuscating behavior of officials in Washington. To understand what happens to the people in these interconnected stories is to understand America’s anguish. Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the book describes the battles that evoked cultural and political conflicts that still reverberate. Purchase at Amazon.com »

• Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

  by Elizabeth Bishop

  This unprecedented collection from The Library of America offers a full-scale presentation of a writer of startling originality, at once passionate and reticent, adventurous and perfectionist. It presents all the poetry that Elizabeth Bishop published in her lifetime, in such classic volumes as North & South, A Cold Spring, Questions of Travel, and Geography III. In addition it contains an extensive selection of unpublished poems and drafts of poems (several not previously collected), as well as all her published poetic translations, ranging from a chorus from Aristophanes' The Birds to versions of Brazilian sambas. Purchase at Amazon.com »

• The Master and Margarita

  by Mikhail Bulgakov

  This uncensored translation of Bulgakov's posthumously published masterpiece of black magic and black humor restores its sliest digs and sharpest jabs at Stalin's regime, which suppressed it. Writing in a punning, soaring prose thick with contemporary historical references and political irony, Bulgakov (1891-1940) did not make things easy for future translators. Purchase at Amazon.com »

• The Forever War

  by Dexter Filkins

  From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinning New York Times correspondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as “reporting of the highest quality imaginable,” we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Purchase at Amazon.com »

Websites

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  From the Chronicle of Higher Education, a virtual glimpse inside every discussion at every student union at every university in the world.

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  Fake news and real news from Jon Stewart and Comedy Central.

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  An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

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  The world's largest museum complex and research organization composed of 19 museums, 9 research centers, and the National Zoo.

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