Do You Teach History? December Spotlight

With public interest in The Supreme Court percolating, we’re highlighting books about the highest court in the land—its history, landmark cases, personalities and its crucial role in American democracy.

Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe’s critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent.

Approaching classic works of literature through the eyes of a modern, thoughtful reader is one way to enhance a reading experience that can otherwise feel musty and dated. Writing for Signature Reads, Jennie Yabroff offers up a list of memoirs written by contemporary authors working their way through five classics.

The United States’ current border issues with Mexico draw attention to the hardships of life there. CNN reports that nearly 35,000 individuals were arrested crossing the southern US border illegally in June. The separation of children from their families created public outcry and nationwide human rights protests. Read on for a selection of books about Mexico and border crossing.

Ira Berlin, a historian whose research and acclaimed books helped reveal the complexities of American slavery and its aftermath, died early this month in Washington. He was 77.

Flights, a “non-traditional” narrative by acclaimed Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, has won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, awarded annually to a fiction work judged to be the year’s outstanding work of translated fiction. Translator Jennifer Croft will share the 50,000 pound prize with Tokarczuk.

Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard announced the winners of the 2018 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards, including the Mark Lynton History Prize for Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, published by Penguin Press.

The Penguin Classics edition of Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky has been shortlisted for the 2018 Read Russia Prize.

John Berger, the British art critic, intellectual and prodigious author whose work redefined the way a generation saw art, died on January 2nd. He was 90.