The shadow of Henry David Thoreau casts itself over many Americans who write about the natural world, and although John Casey works here on a vastly different scale, the values of simple living and hard-earned liberty extend to these pages. In his introduction, Casey points to a different version of Thoreau, noting that in addition to having a fierce meditative streak, he was a great wanderer

Back in the 1980s, doctors had little to offer beyond a kind heart, an attentive ear, and a few highly problematic drugs. An avalanche of intriguing inquiries emerged with each new patient, and yet I do not ever recall anyone wearing a white coat asking the central question that is asked by Jacques Pepin’s masterful new book: “How did AIDS transmogrify into the most deadly scourge in human history?”

The question often arises whether the government should force individuals to keep intimate information private so that they do not later regret its disclosure. An affirmative answer might make people uneasy, especially liberals and libertarians, who do not believe that the government should act paternalistically. Anita Allen sets herself the task of defending what she calls a type of “modest paternalism” where “unpopular privacy” is mandated.

Dan Miron, the foremost Israeli critic and scholar of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, asks a big question: what is Jewish literature, or to be more precise, what is modern Jewish literature? This question has been asked since the advent of Jewish modernity and many answers have been given to it, but it has persisted until the attempt to answer it seemed to reach an impasse. Miron seeks to break the impasse and gives his complex and rich answer.