T.J. Stiles discusses a new, completely annotated edition of Grant’s memoirs, edited by John F. Marszalek, with David S. Nolen and Louie Gallo.

A new biography of the 18th president manages to avoid the pitfalls of what has become a highly lucrative genre.

Harvey Weinstein is set to be the leading man in a feature-length documentary about his sex scandal that has engulfed Hollywood. The BBC is to lift the veil on Weinstein after more than 80 women accused him of various inappropriate behavior ranging from rape to sexual assault through to intimidation, bullying and strange showering habits.

Not a lot concerning the artist, erotic publisher, explorer, and general enigma Count de Waldeck can be taken at face value, and this certainly includes his fanciful representations of ancient Mesoamerican culture which — despite the exquisite brilliance of their execution — run wild with anatopistic lions, elephants, and suspicious architecture. Rhys Griffiths looks at the life and work of one of the 19th century's most mysterious and eccentric figures.

Here’s another hour-long chat at another venue the previous week:  

The author of 'The Captive Mind' became a political thinker who didn’t like politics.

It began with the kind of research the Trump administration wants to unfund: fiddling about with tiny obscure creatures. And there had been US Republican hostility to science before Trump, of course, when Sarah Palin objected to federal funding of fruit fly research (“Fruit flies – I kid you not,” she said). The fruit fly has been a vital workhorse of genetics for 100 years. Jennifer Doudna’s work began with organisms even further out on the Palin scale: bacteriophages, tiny viruses that prey on bacteria.

Most Northerners who fought in the War of the Rebellion declared that they did so to preserve the Union....John William Fenton ... had another motive: to redeem his family from scandal.

Two biographies of Evelyn Waugh show him as a cruel father, but seek to reinstate him as the pre-eminent novelist of his era. Violet Hudson reviews.

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most important and influential American writers of the 19th century. He was the first author to try to make a professional living as a writer. Much of Poe's work was inspired by the events that happened around him.

Catherine Brown reviews John Stubbs’ “Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel.”

This worthy book solidifies the positive image [of Grant] amassed in recent decades....It illuminates Grant’s loving marriage, the sense of honor that made him agonize over debts, also his fundamental decency. It convinced me of his deep faith, and that his drinking has been grossly exaggerated.

He led a one-party communist state by himself. He participated in leading the world to near nuclear crisis. He was in power for quite a long time and the feelings are mixed about him, but one thing is certain: Few world leaders, living or dead, have occupied history’s center stage as long as Fidel Castro, whose death shocked the world today. He dictated over Cuba for nearly half a century.

Stephen Taylor has found a goldmine in the risqué memoirs of this charming, adventurous Georgian aristocrat, who bravely defied convention in the pursuit of true love. By Jane Ridley.

The Buick sedan crawled the Providence streets. The April sky was baby blue, the air pleasant and cool. Perfect baseball weather.

The fourth and final volume of these impeccably edited letters covers the years in which Beckett was lionised and won the Nobel prize, but became ‘weary with words.’ By Chris Power.

Jenni Quilter reviews “Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter” by Cathy Curtis.

FOR the first 25 years of her life, Joy Nason lived in constant fear of “God’s wrath” — to the point where death was a better option than confessing her sins.

Take a closer look at several women whose apparently charmed lives proved the point that money can’t buy happiness.

Queen Kelly's funeral in 1915 was an extravagant festival that would be described in newspapers across the country and lead to numerous legends.