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Sarah Churchwell is chair of public understanding of the humanities at the University of London, and author of “Behold, America” (Bloomsbury)
The United States has always looked to Shakespeare to illuminate its politics – and in the polarised age of Donald Trump his work feels as urgent as ever.
Colson Whitehead’s new novel is a spare and unsparing of a black child’s school experience in 1960s Florida.
Arthur Miller saw the Great Depression and the years after as a period of moral catastrophe. His understanding of American hucksterism, greed and shame could hardly be more relevant in Trump’s world.
The 1920s was a decade of swindles – and one con artist out-tricked them all.
In What Are We Doing Here?, Robinson attacks Fox News and the “dystopian media”.
The last remaining uncollected stories and a new biography show the great novelist’s grasp of history and his place in it.
This 1950s novel, beloved by Marilynne Robinson, has power and poignancy – but little that surprises us.
Whatever you think of Clinton as a politician, it's undeniable that she has been castigated for her ambition in a way her male rival has not.
City on Fire is not bad, but it also is not great - and it might have been if it had been halved.
The novel's use of found photos is an interesting conceit but, like the legerdemain around the book’s title, emphasising the insubstantiality of the fictions around it.
