RealClearBooks Week of February 16, 2026 Archives

RealClearBooks AM Update

Monday, February 16
The Quad God’s Olympic Mortality
Katie Baker The Ringer
“Crime 101” Is a Moody Exercise in Michael Mann Lite
Justin Chang The New Yorker
Crossover Appeal
Zach Kessel Washington Free Beacon
How Toni Morrison Shaped the Way We Think
Namwali Serpell The Guardian
Reading 'Lolita' on Epstein Island
Lily Isaacs The New Statesman
Emerald Fennell’s 'Wuthering Heights' Is Fan Fiction
Annie Berke The New Republic
From Wallace Bros to Bernie Bros and Back Again
Jon Baskin The Point’s Substack
BTS Begins Again
Raymond Ang GQ
Right Wing Luxury Beliefs
Helen Roy Substack
Don Jr’s Steroids Freakshow
Oliver Bateman UnHerd
Creature Comforts
Peter Keepman Modern Age
A Working-Class Siren Song, Sung Blue
Alexander Riley Chronicles
Emily Brontë in Her Smut Era
Shawna Lipton Public Books
The Science of Hooking Up and Settling Down
River Page The Free Press
­­­­­Recovering Love and Marriage
Auguste Meyrat Crisis Magazine
America's Federal System Enables Some Pretty Weird Laws
Tim Hains RCP
The End of Cinema?
Georgie Carr Los Angeles Review of Books


Tuesday, February 17
Robert Duvall Always Struck the Balance
Brian Phillips The Ringer
Alysa Liu Comes of Age
Louisa Thomas The New Yorker
Melania: Behind Closed Doors
Isabella Redjai City Journal
How Hipsters Gave Us Trump
Matthew Schmitz First Things
Not Another Rock ’n’ Roll Poet
Andrew Marzoni Poetry Foundation
The Only Catholic Intellectual
Stephen G. Adubato The Hedgehog Review
Larger than Life
Zito Madu The Point
AI Agonistes
Ross Barkan Political Currents
The Failure to Be Interesting: Part 2
Daniel Oppenheimer Eminent Americans
The Creative Power of Walking
Nicole James The Freeman
p(doom)
Rufus Knuppel The New Critic
Why More Weimar?
Andrew Klavan The New Jerusalem
Gilded Guilt
Jessa Crispin The American Scholar
Blocking AI’s Information Explosion Hurts Everyone
Kevin Frazier Civitas Outlook
The Humanities Are About to Be Automated
Yascha Mounk Substack
Moving Mountains
Tom Scocca Air Mail
Keep Calm and Adapt
Sean Welsh Quillette
Sports Betting and the Zero-Sum Trap
Peter Jacobsen The Daily Economy
Making Sense of What Happened in Minneapolis
Mark Greenblatt MS Now


Wednesday, February 18
Emerald Fennell’s Pursuit of Provocation
Adam Nayman The Ringer
Peter Strausfeld, the Movie-Poster Master
Anthony Lane The New Yorker
Godardorama
Leo Robson New Left Review
America Needs a Better Meritocracy
Helen Andrews Compact
Why Is Everyone So Nice to Eileen Gu?
Mike Pesca The Free Press
On Patricia Lockwood
Meghana Kandlur Cleveland Review of Books
More Stars Are Flocking to International Cinema
Ellise Shafer & Elsa Keslassy Variety
“Wuthering Heights” Is for the TikTok Generation
Evie Solheim First Things
The Enemy of the Good
Nicholas Clairmont The Point
Exile's Reign
Archie Cornish The Metropolitan Review
Thomas Pynchon Saw American Fascism Coming
Ana Gavrilovska Current Affairs
Surprising Revival
Joel Kotkin & Bheki Mahlobo RealClearInvestigations
The Fallacy Fallacy
Maarten Boudry Persuasion
Robert Duvall Was One of the Hollywood Greats
Alexander Larman The Spectator
Comedy in a Country on Fire
Ron Charles Substack
There Is No Great Millennial Novel
Owen Yingling Magazine Non Grata
The Conservative Christian Literary Ecosystem
Nadya Williams Providence


Thursday, February 19
The Cracks in Adam Silver’s NBA Are Spreading Fast
Howard Beck The Ringer
Silicon Valley’s Favorite Doomsaying Philosopher
James Duesterberg The New Yorker
Opposite of Good
John Pistelli Romanticon
The Well-Tempered Teacher
Mark Bauerlein Modern Age
Uccello, Correggio, Tiepolo
Alice Gribbin Notes of an Aesthete
New York’s Museum of Sex
Brian T. Allen National Review
Body Positivity Is a Myth
Madison Huizinga The Republic of Letters
Lessons from Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel
Paul Seaton Civitas Outlook
Don’t condemn the Urban Explorers
Valerie Stivers UnHerd
Denis Johnson’s Desperate, Poetic Horrors
Scott Bradfield The New Republic
Tom Junod Reckons with What It Means to Be a Man
John Hendrickson Esquire
Robert Duvall Was the Best Actor of His Generation
David Mamet The Free Press
‘Infinite Jest’ Endures After Thirty Years
Nora Kenney Mittiga Word on Fire
Of Apes and Men
Larry Arnhart Law & Liberty
The NBA Needs Reforms, Not Gimmicks
Ethan Strauss House of Strauss
The Future Is Bad Bunny
Andrew Day The American Conservative
We Need to Save Gen Z From Obscurity
August Meyrat Chronicles
'Marty Supreme' and the Return of the Antihero
Titus Techera Acton Institute
What Ozempic Taught Me About Style and Self-Worth
Joshua Hunt GQ


Friday, February 20
What Robert Kraft Gets Right
Pamela Paresky RealClearBooks
Six Biggest Story Lines Entering MLB Spring Training
Anthony Dabbundo The Ringer
Clavicular and the Nihilism of Looksmaxxing
Magdalene J. Taylor Many Such Cases
Books and Screens
Carlo Iacono Aeon
Meet the NBA’s Surging New Superstar, Cade Cunningham
Matthew Roberson GQ
Deporting Censorship
Paul D. Thacker RealClearInvestigations
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Hollywood
Gary Baum The Hollywood Reporter
The End of the Middlebrow Movie
Harrison Kass Quillette
Lords of the Ring
Joshua Hunt Harper's
Clavicular Shows How Masculinity Destroys Men
Nathan J. Robinson Current Affairs
REVIEW: A Completely Embarrassing Problem
Sam Franzini Zona Motel
How Parenting ‘Experts’ Scare Women Off Motherhood
Ella Whelan Compact
Netflix Goes to Vietnam
Thomas A. Bass The American Scholar
Planned Man's Links of the Day
Podcast: Who We Are by City Journal
Available this week: "Writer's Diary" by Matthew Gasda
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