Reading between the lines.

If you'd like to sort this department listing by headline, author or date, please use the Slate search.

• Amazing Grace The extraordinarily suspenseful beauty of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.
  Ann Hulbert Dec. 6, 2004
  
• Persian Dilemmas The discouraging lessons of U.S.-Iranian relations.
  Michael McFaul Dec. 2, 2004
  
• The Anne Winters Challenge Should a Marxist poet be stylistically ornate?
  Dan Chiasson Nov. 29, 2004
  
• The Overlooked Master How poetic history conspired against Richard Wilbur.
  James Longenbach Nov. 29, 2004
  
• The Odyssey Derek Walcott, the greatest living English-language poet.
  Adam Kirsch Nov. 29, 2004
  
• Risky Business A book tries, and fails, to quantify catastrophic risks.
  Jeffrey Rosen Nov. 22, 2004
  
• The Thinking Man's Guide to Sex What could be wrong with She Comes First?
  Dan Chiasson Nov. 15, 2004
  
• The 9/11 Commission Report How a government committee made a piece of literature.
  Ben Yagoda Nov. 8, 2004
  
• The Other George W. The quest to curb his outsized ambition.
  Jack Rakove Nov. 4, 2004
  
• Goodbye, Darkness The new science of exuberance.
  Peter D. Kramer Sept. 20, 2004
  
• Fantasy for Grown-Ups The excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
  Polly Shulman Sept. 16, 2004
  
• Starbuck the Great The forgotten poet who made loyalty oaths illegal.
  Eric McHenry Sept. 13, 2004
  
• Take Two How does Persepolis 2 stack up as a graphic novel?
  Douglas Wolk Sept. 7, 2004
  
• Maxim 101 The lad magazine goes literary.
  Dan Chiasson Aug. 9, 2004
  
• Assassination Porn Nicholson Baker's irate new novel.
  Timothy Noah Aug. 5, 2004
  
• A Review … and a Rant When books just want to be movies.
  Aleksandar Hemon July 26, 2004
  
• Peck the Knife What explains Dale Peck's slashing reviews? A case study in critical aggression.
  Laura Kipnis July 7, 2004
  
• A Cheeky Work of Postmodernist Genius Forget Ulysses. Read Celestial Harmonies.
  Aleksandar Hemon June 29, 2004
  
• Out of Ear's Reach An ambitious scholarly treatment of Dylan puts his lyrics beneath the microscope.
  Tim Riley June 21, 2004
  
• Espionage Lit The timely anxieties of spy literature.
  Aleksandar Hemon June 14, 2004
  
• Girls Just Want To Have Fun A new book snoops on sororities.
  Matt Feeney June 7, 2004
  
• Identity Crisis Why we shouldn't worry about Mexican immigration.
  Francis Fukuyama June 4, 2004
  
• Blindsided Ambition Diagnosing a crisis in young women's lives.
  Christine Stansell June 1, 2004
  
• The Poet of Dirty Words History takes a second look at Philip Larkin.
  Stephen Burt May 27, 2004
  
• Secular Illusions The right way to rescue America from religious correctness.
  Richard Wightman Fox May 24, 2004
  
• Girl Uninterrupted Alison Rose's memoir of romances at The New Yorker.
  Katie Roiphe May 17, 2004
  
• Post-Brown Schooldays The new way to integrate—by class, not race.
  Richard Kahlenberg May 11, 2004
  
• The Star, the Born-Again Sinner, and the Gangster Updating Constance Rourke's famous American archetypes.
  Adam Kirsch March 31, 2004
  
• Only Connect A Chance Meeting and the problems of literary biography. 
  Meghan O'Rourke March 26, 2004
  
• The Puritan Hangover Bill Wilson, theologian of AA.
  Wendy Kaminer March 15, 2004
  
• Moor, Please New books on the Bronte phenomenon.
  Elaine Showalter March 1, 2004
  
• Operation Spy Novel The belated age of the thriller: Absolute Friends and Paranoia.
  Fred Kaplan Feb. 13, 2004
  
• The Condensed Joe Eszterhas Slate reads Hollywood Animal so you don't have to.
  Bryan Curtis Feb. 3, 2004
  
• Queens of New York James McCourt's Queer Street is a gossipy romp through gay culture.
  Hilton Als Jan. 30, 2004