This week, we feature a meticulous biography of the remarkable President James A. Garfield and a slim gem that illuminates the importance of fiction.
Nonfiction
‘The Novel, Who Needs It?’
By Joseph Epstein
Packed into this short book are musings on serious novels, their history, and their enormous influence on the human mind and heart, as well as a fine analysis of today’s enemies of fiction, including our digital distractions and our therapeutic age of happiness and self-esteem. The author of numerous books and hundreds of essays—many of them about literature—the 86-year-old Epstein brings us his usual fine writing, insights, and wit. As to his question, the short answer is that we all do, especially now….