Liberal groups hope to bypass Republican-dominated legislatures by going right to voters—but does all the national money pouring into these measures undermine local control?

Joe Moran’s book Shrinking Violets is a sweeping history that doubles as a (quiet) defense of timidity.

The nonfiction author Cutter Wood on how the comedian’s work helped him imbue minor characters with emotional life

Subterranean life isn’t as quiet as you might think.

“To sense this world of waters known to the creatures of the sea we must shed our human perceptions of length and breadth and time and place, and enter vicariously into a universe of all-pervading water.”