Inside Jacket

Edmund Morris, the author of three Theodore Roosevelt biographies, on what Teddy would make of twenty-first-century America.

All is not lost: what President Obama might learn from the Book of Job.

Is it O.K. or okay? Roy Blount, Jr., reviews Allan Metcalf’s “OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word.”

In his new book, Pope Benedict XVI says that condom use might be justified for male prostitutes seeking to prevent the spread of disease.

Literary boozing: where writers like to drink.

Salman Rushdie’s favorite fantasy books.

Why do cookbook authors so often underestimate the time it takes to prepare a meal?

Move over, Shakespeare: how the King James Bible shaped the English language.

Save a tree: a holiday gift guide for rainforest-friendly books.

Are video games the future of journalism?

Philip Roth, John Banville, and Amos Oz are among the nominees for this year’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

Colum McCann, T. J. Stiles, and Keith Waldrop win National Book Awards.

“The Imperial Cruise” argues that Theodore Roosevelt based his foreign policy on odd notions of race.

Junot Diaz failed for five years while writing “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

Big event books get their own movie-style trailers.

Karl Rove’s memoir “Courage and Responsibility” will be published in March.

A Minnesota father spoke only Klingon to his child for three years.

Barack Obama is the subject of more than sixty children’s books.