As the ultra-conservative director of the FBI for nearly 50 years, Hoover is arguably more responsible for the emergence of the US far right than anyone else. Who was he? What happened?
Ellison is reputed to be little short of a genius - for forty years a carpenter, cabinet-maker, industrial designer, sculptor, welder; and capable of realising the three-dimensional processe... read more
Better known perhaps as a writer (Invisible Man, 1952), Ellison was also a fine photographer, who turned his camera as well as his pen on everyday life in America, especially the Black exper... read more
A taut, brilliantly uneasy novel about a young woman drifting through the glamorous world of Long Island as an uninvited and rather desperate guest. By the author of The Girls.
Edie's older sister attempts to understand how her younger sibling progressed from an isolated, privileged Californian childhood to become Warhol's muse.
Madison quietly set about creating a revolution in vegetarian cooking at Greens restaurant in San Francisco; she'd also done time at Chez Panisse. First published in 1987, this excellent boo... read more
Where did refugees from the American and French Revolutions go? This remarkable historical perspective shows how opening doors can be more profitable than closing borders.
A lively account of the origins of the American Dream - an idea which Moore traces back across the Atlantic to the intellectual and political bustling of Enlightenment Britain.
Published last year in the US, this account of the rich in mid-C20th New York, and Capote's multiple betrayals of friendships, is both fascinating and shocking.
A memoir set in rural Wyoming where Ehrlich moved in 1978 after the unexpected death of her partner. There is grief, of course, but there are also cowboys and beautiful descriptions of the A... read more
This glorious tapestry of a novel returns to Taylor's accustomed stomping ground - the university campus - with whisper-close third-person narration and minute observation worthy of his reve... read more
A singular, haunting coming-of-age story set in the Canadian Arctic, in which myth and savage reality blur into each other. An acclaimed debut by an Inuk author.
Fleeing starvation in the Jameston settlement, a servant girl sets out alone into the wilderness. An historical novel set in early colonial America, by the author of Matrix.
A teacher of photography on a New England campus remembers his West African childhood: Cole may be writing about himself here. The novel is a subtle, quiet exploration of memory, the passage... read more
The story of the first contact between the Haida and other indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West with Europeans - and what came after. Told very powerfully in a graphic form that comb... read more
Johan Jakob Astor left Germany for a flute-making business in London in the late C18th, and then moved to New York where he dealt in pianos, opium, furs and real estate: what glistered was i... read more
Abdurraqib's meditation on Black music and performance, A Little Devil in America, was inspired. This new book, a literary memoir about basketball and what it takes to be successful, what it... read more