Books

When I was a child, I read only baseball box scores. More recently, when Marilynne Robinson has a new book I immediately order it.

Sheldon Garon contends that Americans lack moral teaching on wealth, public policies that encourage saving, and a cultural ethos that nurtures thrift.

Atina Diffley and her husband are organic farmers in Minnesota. Her book contains three stories in one.

David Streitfeld's Times writeup on Amazon's latest customer-service push is generally informative, but he buries the lede. Here's his explanation as to why the retailer is putting up new warehouses all over the country: This multibillion-dollar building frenzy comes as Amazon is about to lose perhaps its biggest competitive edge — that the vast majority of its customers do not pay sales tax. After negotiations with lawmakers, the company is beginning to collect taxes in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and other states. But Amazon hopes that the warehouses will allow it to provide better service, giving it the ability to up-end the retailing industry in an entirely new way. So they needed a new way to have an edge, and they happened to go with more warehouses?

Jeffrey Bishop is both a physician and a philosopher. Here he turns his clinical and analytical gaze on medicine, and his diagnosis is bleak.

Lynne Gerber's interaction with the discourses of evangelical weight loss and sexual reorientation is engaging, surprising and admirably charitable.

In his sparkling new collection of essays, David McGlynn wrestles with some of the same fierce angels that haunt his short stories.

Kitty Ferguson's biography of Stephen Hawking is an important book for anyone interested in who and what we are—and where we're going.

Garry Wills presents Ambrose as a forerunner of Desmond Tutu, who also opposed a government that intruded upon the church's claims.

John Knapp tells the story of a businessperson short on cash, with a client who can't pay his bill. For Knapp, this case study highlights the great divide between work and faith.

Readers familiar with Ross Douthat's column might expect his new book to be moderately conservative and carefully nuanced. It is neither.

Alvin Plantinga posits a profound conflict between naturalism and science. This extraordinary claim is deeply counterintuitive.

Susan Jacoby is an important truth teller. Her book's core idea is that old age is real, inescapable and often dreadful—despite society's illusions.

Anne Lamott fans: if you're expecting a reprise of the gritty Operating Instructions, this isn't it. But read on.

Kansas politics are often polarizing and angry—and rooted at least rhetorically in conservative Christianity. If this situation seems dire, Robert Wuthnow provides encouraging news.