Webster County Library

The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin examines the role of time in the universe.    

In André Aciman’s novel, an alienated immigrant grad student befriends a volatile immigrant hack.    

The Polish singer Vera Gran survived World War II, but at a heavy price.    

Fiction meets history in Ismail Kadare’s novel.    

David Sedaris, the humor essayist who calls his work “realish,” is at No. 1 on the hardcover nonfiction list this week, with “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls.”    

Helen Oyeyemi can’t remember when she started writing.    

Ramona Ausubel’s fantastical story collection traces a cycle of transformation: from love to conception to gestation to birth.    

The centenary of H. G. Wells’s book that started a hobby and continues to inspire war-game designers.    

Claire Messud’s latest novel depicts a thwarted artist bewitched by a boy and his parents.    

This biography of William Colby, onetime director of the Central Intelligence Agency, reveals a spy who could blend in anywhere.    

David Rohde shows the consequences of raising U.S.A.I.D. budgets and cutting its staff.    

What sports taught her about raising a family

Plus, Spielberg is directing 'American Sniper' and send a haiku to Mars!

The poet and critic, whose correspondence with the poet Tomas Transtromer, “Airmail,” has just been published, was influenced by Kierkegaard: “He predicts the rise of savagery.”    

A reader responds to a recent review of Monte Reel’s “Between Man and Beast.”    

A reader responds to a recent review of Anne Carson’s “Red Doc.”    

A reader responds to a recent interview with Clive James.    

A reader responds to a recent review of Elizabeth Becker’s “Overbooked.”    

A reader responds to a recent essay by Nathaniel Rich.    

In John le Carré’s new novel, “A Delicate Truth,” shortsightedness, hypocrisy, lies and unfettered greed plague the “post-imperial, post-cold-war world.”