And One Singer-Songwriter. By Sarah Henstra.

Twenty-one documents found in the U.K.'s National Archives add context to the Bard's feelings toward power and monarchy

Polish codebreakers paved the way for Alan Turing to decrypt German messages in the Second World War. Joanne Baker commends a gripping tale. Alan Turing’s crucial unscrambling of German messages in the Second World War was a tour de force of codebreaking. From 1940 onwards, Turing and his team engineered hundreds of electronic machines, dubbed bombes, which decrypted the thousands of missives sent by enemy commanders each day to guide their soldiers.

A.E. Hotchner, who grew up to be pals with Ernest Hemingway and Paul Newman, just published a mystery about a boy, a long-ago summer and a jewelry heist.

Only in his supposedly lost years was Wilde free to express his genius in his life. By Alex Dean.

"Dodgson had taken a travelling chess set with him, which proved a boon on some of their long train journeys; he also recorded his first impression of Moscow as 'bulging gilded domes, in which you see as in a looking-glass distorted pictures of the city.'” By Mark Davies.

Gary Saul Morson on the rise and fall of the first Russian populists.

Plato’stheory of justice quite different from and contrary to the justice as we understand it in constitutional-legal terms, can be precisely summed in following two quotes from the Republic: “Justice is having and doing what is one’s own”and “A just man is a man just in the right place doing his best and giving full equivalent of what he receives”.

If you’re a fan of children’s books, prepare to lose hours browsing through the virtual UCLA Children’s Book Collection. The digital archive hosts over 1,800 children’s fiction, poems, and educational books dating from 1728 to 1999. From fairy tale classics such a Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this collection will take you right back to your childhood.

In 1909, two London bookbinders were commissioned to create a book that would become one of the most bedazzling the world had beheld. Joobin Bekhrad reveals how it ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic – and how it still influences today.

The internet! It’s good for buying things, for reading your relatives’ racist screeds on Facebook, and for judging strangers from afar. But it’s also occasionally quite good at crowdsourcing customized entertainment at remarkable speeds.

Twenty-two years ago, Joseph Bitetto's mother went into labor prematurely. EMTs raced to her home, administered first aid and rushed her to the hospital. "There was blood everywhere, on the ground, on the toilet... My mom was bleeding out profusely," Bitetto told CNN. "If the EMTs didn't act accordingly and fast, she was in danger and I was in danger." Both mother and child survived. Bitetto's grateful father thanked the doctors and police. But in the midst of chaos, he never got a chance to thank the medics.

Students in Duluth will no longer automatically get schooled in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or the trials of Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In an effort to be considerate of all students, the two novels, which contain racial slurs, will no longer be required reading in the district’s English classes next school year. They will still be available in the schools for optional reading, however.

“Homefront Warriors” is a revealing account of what it is like for those who stay behind as their soldier goes off to fight.

Reading, education can help ensure that prisoners who gain freedom, keep it.

What makes a science fiction story a space opera? By T.W. O'Brien.

The Swedish Academy has been consumed by charges that a man close to it sexually assaulted women, and that the academy mishandled the allegations.

AT THE CORNER of 8th and Market in San Francisco, by a shuttered subway escalator outside a Burger King, an unusual soundtrack plays. A beige speaker, mounted atop a tall window, blasts Baroque harpsichord at deafening volumes. The music never stops. Night and day, Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi rain down from Burger King rooftops onto empty streets. Empty streets, however, are the target audience for this concert. The playlist has been selected to repel sidewalk listeners — specifically...

Stephen Greenblatt’s ardent and involving new book is concerned with rulers and aspirants in Shakespeare who abuse their power. By John Stubbs.

In the Western world, only since the mid-18th century has it been possible to discuss ethical questions publicly without referring to Christianity. Modern thinking about morality, which assumes that gods do not exist, or at least do not intervene, is in its infancy. But the ancient Greeks and Romans elaborated robust philosophical schools of ethical thought for more than a millennium, from the first professed agnostics such as Protagoras (fifth century BCE) to the last pagan thinkers. The Platonists’ Academy at Athens was not finally closed down until 529 CE, by the Emperor Justinian.

The writer, who died at 89, invested common words with the power of a constructive, shaping force.

Some of the most searing poems by Korzhavin, who has died, at the age of ninety-two, focus on his decision to go into exile, to America, in the seventies. By Masha Gessen.

As corporations take control of nerd culture, science fiction’s most esoteric epic remains gloriously untamed. By Sean T. Collins.

How is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant? According to Shakespeare, it could not happen without widespread complicity. By Stephen Greenblatt.

Why we love Lucifer—and why Milton might have, too. By Edwin M. Yoder Jr.

Orwell’s predicted it: citizens willingly buy for entertainment the very screens that can be used against us. By Henry Cowles.

Four nineteenth-century authors offered blueprints for a better world—but their progressive visions had a dark side. By Adam Gopnik.

It's always fun to speculate about how we'll die, like to break the ice during a party or while chatting in the subway with terrified strangers. We've all done that, right? Well. these people took it to a whole new level.

An interview with Paul Tang, whose People' Recreation Community has tapped into an intriguing new market.

With the onslaught of e-books, what will the rare book even look like 50 years from now? 200? Will it exist?

London's Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, also has a leading historic book collection. The palace's library was the scene of a major crime that stayed undiscovered for decades.

We're here to help.

Etymology, or the study of the origin of words, is dry, dusty stuff that will give you allergies if you play with it too long.

Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It’s a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making. New Canadian research finds reading a literary short story increases one’s comfort with ambiguity.

It turns out that Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling is the author behind “Robert Galbraith’s” The Cuckoo’s Calling. Amazon reviews are overwhelmingly positive, citing its “engrossing” twists and “complex and compelling” characters as a few of the highlights.