It's often the case that the most strained moments in books are the very beginning and the very end - the getting in and the getting out. The ending, especially: it's awkward, as if the writer doesn't know when the book is over and nervously says it all again.

The Iron Curtain may be a thing of the past, but Mother Russia is as mysterious as ever.

Almost the first thing you see after entering the Houdini exhibition at the Jewish Museum is a large-screen film of Harry Houdini hanging by his ankles upside-down from a tall building, high over a sea of men in fedoras, and thrashing his way out of a straitjacket.

Gelsey Kirkland has had more than her share of demons, as her two distressing memoirs - and her violently checkered career - attest.

In some sense, I'm a romantic. I like the idea of organic history and tradition.

It is important to have a clear head while bowling at the death, and one has to have self-belief.

New malaria cases fell by 21 percent between 2010 and 2015 worldwide, and malaria death rates fell by 29 percent in the same period. Yet, though malaria is preventable and treatable, it is still claiming too many lives around the world.

When you have a child, you think about your own mortality.