Becky Zhang: “The Precipice” is set at a private all-girls school in Los Angeles in the Nineties, but is written from the ...

I’m talking about the rupture of a civilizing thread—historic events, like the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter on April ...

At that moment we somehow knew that it was the beach where the artist, with a perfect taste for drama, for a great story, for a piercing ray of light, had met his end. His signature might have been ...

The rules of Japan’s national sport are relatively straightforward: two rikishi—literally, “strong men”—face each other near the center of the ring, crouched on their haunches, like plus-size ...

The speaker of “Danse Russe,” William Carlos Williams’s oft-anthologized poem, gyrates naked before his mirror, singing, “I am lonely, lonely. / I was born to be lonely, / I am best so!” Good for him, ...

From The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin’s Greatest Enemy, out in February from Dutton. Leon Trotsky’s whitewashed study, which abutted his simply furnished bedroom, was ...

When the crow whisperer appeared at the side gate to Adam Florin and Dani Fisher’s house, in Oakland, California, she was dressed head to toe in black, wearing a hoodie, gloves, and a mask. This was a ...

We will never know how many died during the Butlerian Jihad. Was it millions? Billions? Trillions, perhaps? It was a fantastic rage, a great revolt that spread like wildfire, consuming everything in ...

During the worst romance of my life, I often fantasized about holding a funeral for the relationship. Over time, I worked the fantasy out in detail: I had picked a location and imagined congregating ...

On a clear October day, I walked to the continent’s edge. I had arrived in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, encased in metal, first in a plane that brought me across the country, then in a rental car ...

Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in U.S. and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala, translated by William Savinar. Vanderbilt University Press. 206 pages. $34.95. The Dope: The Real History of ...