Did you catch Joseph Bernstein’s great article in The Times Magazine last month about Benjamin B. Bolger, the man who couldn’t stop going to college? “I love learning,” Bolger told Bernstein by way of explaining his 14 advanced degrees, a quote that led to one of my favorite lines in the profile: “Many of us love learning, too, but we don’t do what Bolger has done; we listen to history podcasts on our commutes or pick our way through long books in the minutes before sleep.”
If you prefer to do your learning through books rather than lecture courses, we have some that might do the trick: Our recommended books this week include new biographies of Harriet Tubman and the poet Thom Gunn, along with a memoir by a longtime federal appellate court judge and a history of folk magic in England. In fiction, we recommend new novels by Rufi Thorpe and Alison Esbach. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles