NASA
‘Across the Airless Wilds’ Review: The Ultimate Road Trip

Walking on the moon was a historic feat—but Americans like to get behind the wheel. Review by Michael O’Donnell

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Photo: Alamy

‘The Man Who Hated Women’ Review: Reign of the Censor

The pious crusader Anthony Comstock mounted a war on what he called vice—and what others called freedom. Review by Charlotte Gray.

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Platform Books
‘An Especially Good View’ Review: The Publisher as Storyteller

Tales of battlefields and book deals from a newspaperman-turned-publisher. Review by Tunku Varadarajan

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Paul Bergen/Redferns
‘Willie Nelson’s Letters to America’ Review: Notes From a Red-Headed Pen Pal

A compendium of fond memories, favorite gags and feisty opinions from a beloved outlaw of music. Review by Dave Shiflett

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Photo illustration by Gil Andrei Fontimayor for The Wall Street Journal/Photos: Hayden Herrera and Blair Resika
‘Upper Bohemia’ Review: Living With Abandon

An art historian’s memoir of a Cape Cod childhood in which freedom—for better or worse—was privileged. Review by Heller McAlpin

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Fiction: ‘Ridgeline’ Review

A story of Crazy Horse from the author of ‘The Revenant.’ Plus Claire Boyles’s ‘Site Fidelity’ and Kate Grenville’s ‘A Room Made of Leaves.’ Review by Sam Sacks

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Luigi Baldin/Electa/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images
‘Love and Sex in the Time of Plague’ Review: Bawdy Tales, Hidden Wisdom

In a pandemic era, Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ takes on new significance. Review by Andrew Stark

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National Park Service
‘Fears of a Setting Sun’ Review: Factions at America’s Founding

Even as the republic was being born, its architects wondered if it could hold together. Review by Barton Swaim

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Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc., Illustrations copyright 2021 by Hyewon Yum
Children’s Books: ‘Not Little’ Review

Plus nonfiction about Dian Fossey, Marianne North and the wide world of toy advertising. Review by Meghan Cox Gurdon

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Bridgeman Images
Five Best: Books on the American Revolution

Selected by John Ferling, the author, most recently, of ‘Winning Independence.’

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