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Books of the Year 2023

Revolutions and rubles, godlings and fascist symbols, Shakespeare and silk: ten historians choose their favourite new history books of 2023.

‘This is how economic history should be done’

Peter Brown is Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, Emeritus at Princeton University and author of Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History (Princeton, 2023)

Meticulously researched and written with flair, Ekaterina Pravilova’s The Ruble: A Political History (Oxford) is the story of how monetary policy, seemingly the most impersonal of forces, resonated throughout an immense and diverse empire touching every aspect, from daily life to high politics and the social imagination. An unequalled introduction to modern Russia, this is how economic history should be done.

Christopher I. Beckwith’s The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China  (Princeton) spans the world from China to the Danube, joining revolutions of military technology and social practice with equally profound breakthroughs in the human mind – Plato, Zoroaster and the Buddha. Prodigiously learned, the book is full of hitherto unthought-of connections across the northern steppes. Not everyone will agree with Beckwith, but all will be challenged by his book which turns the classical world as we know it inside out.

The Ruble: A Political History Robert Darnton Oxford, 576pp, £30.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China Christopher I. Beckwork Princeton, 416pp, £35 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘Lyrical and iconoclastic by turns’

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford and author of  Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers (Allen Lane, 2023)

Four centuries after Shakespeare’s First Folio  left the Jaggards’ print shop in the Barbican, the British Library have produced a beautiful facsimile of one of their copies, complete with the original volume’s bright red gold-tooled binding. Uncluttered by introduction or commentary, this lovely book is as close as most of us will ever get to the real thing.

Moving from page to the stage, Callan Davies’ refreshing book What Is a Playhouse? England at Play 1520-1620 (Routledge) re-examines an economy of fun. If the First Folio put the plays firmly in the study, Davies examines them in the context of the entertainments of their time, including gambling, sport, drinking and bear-baiting.

Finally, Joe Minden’s collection Poppy (Carcanet) thinks anew about the tropes of war poetry, and about the relationship between literature, memory and history: lyrical and iconoclastic by turns, this is a poet to look out for.

Shakespeare's First Folio William Shakespeare British Library, 912pp, £125 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

What is a Playhouse?: England at Play, 1520-1620 Callan Davies Routledge, 230pp, £35.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Poppy Joseph Minden Carcanet, 112pp, £11.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘A refreshing reappraisal’

Sheila Miyosh Jager is Professor of East Asian History at Oberlin College, Ohio and author of The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (Belknap Press, 2023)

Chiang Kai-shek led the Republic of China for almost 50 years from 1926. Drawing on his diaries and unused Russian archives, Alexander V. Pantsov’s Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975 (Yale) is a refreshing reappraisal of a man who was neither the corrupt fascist of standard historiography nor the tragic hero of more recent positive reassessments.

During a gloomy period, it is good to have a reminder that the US has survived periods of tumult and self-doubt. Adam Hochschild’s American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (Mariner) paints a picture of America in the years following its entry into the war. Patriotic frenzy, strikes, race riots and anarchist bombings unleashed a wave of political repression which taught a later generation of liberals that it was better to absorb some radical ideas than to reject them altogether.

Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975 Alexander V. Pantsov Yale, 736pp, £30 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis Adam Hochschild Mariner, 432pp, £12.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘Empires were neither devilish slaughterhouses nor philanthropic charities’

Pratinav Anil is Lecturer at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and author of Another India: The Making of the World’s Largest Muslim Minority, 1947-77 (Hurst, 2023)

With an unenviable ringside view of the culture wars, I’ve had to slog through many a dispiriting polemic on the British Empire this year. Yet as some histories have shown – such as Nandini Das’ account of London’s froward, foppish first ambassador to India, Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury), and Matthew Parker’s history of the British Empire at its territorial zenith, One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink (Abacus) – empires were neither devilish slaughterhouses nor philanthropic charities but rather precarious, parsimonious things.

I also enjoyed Tamson Pietsch’s brilliant The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge (Chicago), in which a rogue university professor sets up a college at sea. Posh brats are also up to no good in John Brewer’s whimsical Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions (Yale) on romance and revolution in 19th-century Naples. Hot stuff.

Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire Nandini Das Bloomsbury, 480pp, £30 Read our original review Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the Brink Matthew Parker Abacus, 625pp, £25 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge Tamson Pietsch Chicago, 331pp, £32 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions John Brewer Yale, 664pp, £30 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘A vibrant long-term narrative’

Patricia Fara is Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and columnist at History Today

‘The future is not what it used to be’, quips Richard Fisher in The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time (Wildfire. His lively manifesto for the Anthropocene Age investigates diverse attitudes towards time and the human tendency to favour short-term rewards. For our world to survive, he insists, we must take action now: tomorrow will be too late.

An equally vibrant long-term narrative is Aarathi Prasad’s Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses  (William Collins), which glides effortlessly between Neolithic sculpture, insects and the tantalising lure of fabricating smart materials with medical applications. In contrast, Maria Smilios focuses on a single but shameful episode in US history. The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis (Little, Brown) evocatively relates the stories of black nurses recruited to care for white sufferers from tuberculosis during the Great Depression.

The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time Richard Fisher Wildfire, 352pp, £25 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses Aarathi Prasad William Collins, 368pp, £22 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis Maria Smilios Little, Brown, 448pp, £35 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘A fascinating study of legends and popular belief’

Eleanor Parker is Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford and columnist at History Today

The book that gave me the most to think about this year was Francis Young’s Twilight of the Godlings: The Shadowy Beginnings of Britain’s Supernatural Beings (Cambridge), which traces the history of belief in fairies, elves, landscape spirits and other ‘godlings’ from the pre-Roman period up to the end of the Middle Ages. It’s a fascinating study of legends and popular beliefs which have historically often been marginalised or misunderstood.

A very different strand of medieval belief is explored by Michelle P. Brown in Bede and the Theory of Everything (Reaktion). Brown takes an integrated view of Bede’s life and work as a historian, scientist, scribe, poet and translator. She argues that for Bede all these fields of study were as richly interconnected as the intricate artwork of the Lindisfarne Gospels: his was a view of history ‘grounded in an appreciation of long time and space and the interconnectivity of all things’.

Twilight of the Godlings: The Shadowy Beginnings of Britain’s Supernatural Beings Francis Young Cambridge, 350pp, £30 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Bede and the Theory of Everything Michelle P. Brown Reaktion, 312pp, £16.95 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘This wry scholarly autobiography excels in its pen portraits’

Michael Ledger-Lomas is Author of Queen Victoria: This Thorny Crown (Oxford, 2021)

As Peter Brown’s histories of antique Christianity have been models for my explorations of Victorian religion, I was gripped by Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History (Princeton). This wry scholarly autobiography excels in its pen portraits of scholars who have influenced Brown, from Mary Douglas to Michel Foucault.

Christopher Clark’s Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848-1849 (Allen Lane) confirms his standing as a maestro of contingency. His panoramic book presents the European revolutions as a ‘particle collision chamber’ for peoples and movements, which generated new ideologies and forms of governmentality.

Stephen Bown’s Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada (Doubleday) shows how the Canadian Pacific Railway strengthened imperial Canada by linking its two coasts. This model popular history offers Canadians a coherent but unillusioned narrative about how their state came to be, which emphasises the ruthlessness as well as the ambition of its architects.

Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History Peter Brown Princeton, 736pp, £38 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848-1849 Christopher Clark Allen Lane, 896pp, £35 Read our original review Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada Stephen Brown Doubleday, 416pp, £25

‘Makes artful use of records, recounting matters as mundane as travel permits, tax investigations and deportations’

Amrita Malhi is Researcher at Flinders University and the Australian National University

Kalyani Ramnath’s Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942-1962 (Stanford) is an important examination of the way the Second World War and subsequent decolonisation broke the circuits connecting South and Southeast Asia – circuits in which hundreds of thousands of mobile Indians lived their lives. Through the lens of law, and her own family’s flight from Burma, Ramnath recounts how the Japanese occupation forced many of these Indians to ‘return’ to India, complicating their claims to citizenship in the newly independent states that emerged after the war. Ramnath makes artful use of records, recounting matters as mundane as travel permits, tax investigations and deportations to show how ordinary people experienced decolonisation as a rupture that restructured lives lived ‘around and across’ the Indian Ocean.

Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942-1962 Kalyani Ramnath Stanford, 308pp, £25.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘Brilliantly combines technical knowledge and historical insights’

Rhiannon Ash is Professor of Roman Historiography at Merton College, University of Oxford

When is a tree not a tree? When Annalisa Marzano offers her vibrant and perceptive study of the cultural and political dimension of Roman arboriculture, exploring the movement of plants from one part of the empire to another as a way to understand key aspects of Roman imperialism, culture and identity. In Plants, Politics, and Empire in Ancient Rome (Cambridge), Marzano brilliantly combines technical knowledge and historical insights to deliver a unique study of the era of the principate of Emperor Augustus and beyond.

T. Corey Brennan’s The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome’s Most Dangerous Political Symbol (Oxford) is a wide-reaching, ambitious book presenting a global history of fasces (‘an assemblage of wooden rods, typically about a meter and a half long, bound by leather straps together with a single-headed axe – the equipment needed to inflict either corporal or capital punishment’). Brennan covers a vast sweep of time, moving from their Etruscan origins in antiquity to the revival of the symbol in fascist Europe.

Plants, Politics, and Empire in Ancient Rome Annalisa Marzano Allen Lane, 380pp, £90

The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome’s Most Dangerous Political Symbol T. Corey Brennan Oxford, 288pp, £26.49 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

‘Raises interesting questions about how we use historical evidence’

Nandini Das is author of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury)

I have been thinking a lot about life-writing and biographies recently. Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man by Peter K. Andersson (Princeton) is a fascinating look at Will Somer, Henry VIII’s court fool. It is a book that makes a great case for looking at history through those who are often disregarded, but also raises interesting questions about how we use historical evidence – particularly when that evidence is of the non-traditional sort (in Somer’s case his afterlife in Tudor jest-books and drama).

Then there is Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish by Francesca Peacock (Bloomsbury), which places the eccentric, volatile writer of The Blazing World against the backdrop of all the political and intellectual turmoil of her time.

And I can’t wait for readers to see Ruby Lal’s Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan (Yale), out early next year, which will shed new light on our understanding of the lives of pre-modern Islamic women travellers.

Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man Peter K. Andersson Princeton, 224pp, £22 Read our original review Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish Francesca Peacock Bloomsbury, 384pp, £27.99 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan Ruby Lal Yale, 280pp, £22 Buy from  bookshop.org  (affiliate link)

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All Nominees • 217,017 votes total

2023 Rules & Eligibility

The 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards have two rounds of voting open to all registered Goodreads members. Winners will be announced December 07, 2023.

Opening Round: Nov 14 - 26

In the first round there are 20 books in each of the 15 categories, and members can vote for one book in each category.

Final Round: Nov 28 - Dec 03

The field narrows to the top 10 books in each category, and members have one last chance to vote!

2023 Eligibility

Books published in the United States in English, including works in translation and other significant rereleases, between November 17, 2022, and November 15, 2023, are eligible for the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards. Books published between November 16, 2023, and November 12, 2024, will be eligible for the 2024 awards.

We analyze statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads to nominate 20 books in each category. Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher at the time of launch. A book may be nominated in no more than one genre category, but can also be nominated in the Debut Novel category. Only one book in a series may be nominated per category. An author may receive multiple nominations within a single category if he or she has more than one eligible series or more than one eligible stand-alone book. Learn more

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Smithsonian's ten best history books of 2021.

After 2020 brought the most devastating global pandemic in a century and a national reckoning with  systemic racism , 2021 ushered in a number of welcome developments, including  Covid vaccines , the return of beloved social traditions like the  Olympics  and  public performances , and  incremental  but  measurable progress  in the  fight   against racial injustice . 

During this year of change, these ten titles collectively serve a dual purpose. Some offer a respite from reality, transporting readers to such varied locales as ancient Rome, Gilded Age America and Angkor in Cambodia. Others reflect on the fraught nature of the current moment, detailing how the nation’s past—including the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II and police brutality—informs its present and future. From a chronicle of civilization told through clocks to a quest for Indigenous justice in colonial Pennsylvania, these were some of our favorite history books of 2021.

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age  by Annalee Newitz

“It’s terrifying to realize that most of humanity lives in places that are destined to die,” writes  Annalee Newitz  in the opening pages of  Four Lost Cities . This stark statement sets the stage for the journalist’s  incisive exploration  of how cities collapse—a topic with clear ramifications for the “global-warming present,” as  Kirkus  notes in its review of the book. Centered on the ancient metropolises of  Çatalhöyük , a  Neolithic settlement  in southern Anatolia;  Pompeii , the Roman city razed by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E.;  Angkor , the medieval Cambodian capital of the Khmer Empire; and  Cahokia , a pre-Hispanic metropolis in what is now Illinois,  Four Lost Cities  traces its subjects’ successes and failures, underscoring surprising connections between these ostensibly disparate societies. 

All four cities boasted sophisticated infrastructure systems and ingenious feats of engineering. Angkor, for instance, became an  economic powerhouse  in large part due to its  complex network  of canals and reservoirs, while Cahokia was known for its towering  earthen pyramids , which locals imbued with spiritual significance. Despite these innovations, the featured urban hubs eventually succumbed to what Newitz describes as “prolonged periods of political instability”—often precipitated by poor leadership and social hierarchies—“coupled with environmental collapse.” These same problems plague modern cities, the writer argues, but the past offers valuable lessons for preventing such disasters in the future, including investing in “resilient infrastructure, … public plazas, domestic spaces for everyone, social mobility and leaders who treat the city’s workers with dignity.”

Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America  by Nicole Eustace

In the winter of 1722, two white fur traders murdered Seneca hunter Sawantaeny after he refused their drunken, underhanded attempts to strike a deal. The ensuing furor, writes historian  Nicole Eustace  in  Covered With Night , threatened to spark outright war between English colonists and the Indigenous inhabitants of the mid-Atlantic. Rather than enter into a prolonged, bloody battle, the  Susquehanna River  valley’s Native peoples forged an agreement, welcoming white traders back into their villages once Sawantaeny’s body had been metaphorically “covered,” or laid to rest in a “respectful, ritualized way,” as Eustace told  Smithsonian  magazine’ s Karin Wulf earlier this year.

“Native people believe that a crisis of murder makes a rupture in the community and that rupture needs to be repaired,” Eustace added. “They are not focused on vengeance; they are focused on repair, on rebuilding community. And that requires a variety of actions. They want emotional reconciliation. They want economic restitution.”

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21 Best New History Books to Read Now

Step back in time with 21 of the best new history books to come out in 2024 so far (plus a few beloved books now out in paperback) including a riveting narrative of China's rise, a big picture history of revolutions by Fareed Zaharia, a trip through the history of psychedelics and a few books for the WWII buff including an illuminating fresh look at the Holocaust.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

New Yorker staff writer, Jonathan Blitzer’s thoroughly reported new book about the roots of the growing crisis at the southern border “is a character-driven chronicle of 40 years of transcontinental violence and displacement... [and] a welcome intervention in a toxic discourse, one that unveils the ties that bind our artificially fractured hemisphere," wrote the Texas Observer’s Gus Bova.

Hardcover , 2024

Asia After Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century

Asia’s meteoric rise is one of the most consequential geopolitical trends of the twentieth century. The continent’s rise, however, has been one fractured by nationalist sentiment and divergent political ideologies. Still, aspirations for Asian universalism and solidarity persisted, and in this incisive new history, Sugata Bose, examines how these sentiments have endured and offered an alternative to the U.S. led global system.

Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present

From populist rage, to the shockwaves of AI and automation to ideological fracture, the early decades of the 21st century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history, but it is not the first. Fareed Zakaria, one of the most respected personalities on television as a public intellectual who makes analysis of complex global trends accessible to all, masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world.

The Holocaust: An Unfinished History

Dan Stone’s comprehensive new history of the Holocaust has received rave reviews since its release. Samuel Clowes’ review in The New Republic sheds some light on why: "Instead of presenting Holocaust history as a tidy affair wrapped in a bow with neat moral messages, Stone proposes that we examine its unfinishedness, its unknowability, and its incompleteness… By confronting these uncomfortable truths, Stone hopes to jolt us out of complacency."

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq

One of Foreign Policy’s most anticipated books of the year, this exhaustive account of the lengthy relationship between Saddam Hussein and the United States from New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize winner, Steve Coll, provides crucial new context about the decisions that eventually led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories

Versatile and venerated author Amitav Ghosh returns with another compelling interdisciplinary book, which Foreign Policy named as one of its most anticipated books of 2024. Smoke and Ashes combines travelogue, memoir, and history writing to tell the riveting story of how the opium trade transformed the world.

Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science

This audacious new history of the introduction of psychedelics into the cultural mainstream in the middle of the twentieth century, centers around the anthropologists, and doomed lovers, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson whose pioneering work on expanding human consciousness helped usher in this new era.

Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are

Glowing reviews have been rolling in for Rebecca Boyle’s new anthropological and scientific history of humanity’s relationship with the Moon. In the New York Times, Katrina Miller wrote, "Boyle walks the reader through a history of both Earth and humanity, from the formation of our planet and the evolution of life to the development of civilization... and, eventually, science... she argues, the moon has played a starring role in how we came to be, and who we are."

The Gardener of Lashkar Gah: The Afghans Who Risked Everything to Fight the Taliban

This work of recent history tells the story of the countless Afghani interpreters and others who worked alongside the British and American armies, and were largely abandoned when Western troops left the country in 2021. In the Guardian, John Simpson praised the book as, "beautifully researched and deeply moving, [this book] brought me to tears more than once."

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

Elle’s Lauren Puckett-Pope called this history of Maryland’s Crownsville State Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums to be closed, from Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton “a radically complex work of historical study, etching the intersections of race, mental health, criminal justice, public health, memory, and the essential quest for human dignity.”

Best history books 🏰

Curated by our reviewers this week

SUNDAY 30th JUNE, 2024

The lucky seven.

Norman W. Holden

One of the best World War II books ever! You won't want to miss this one!

Reviewed by Kristine L.

Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress: How Innovators of ...

Jason Voiovich

Thorough and witty, this curated history of 1920s American innovation reveals the un(der)told foundations for consumerism and c...

Reviewed by Nicole-Anne Keyton

Why We Fight: Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines Talk Ab...

L Douglas Keeney

If I saw this book on a shelf, I'd be compelled to pick it up and look inside.

Reviewed by Kameron Brook

Silent Spring

Patrick Hogan

Silent Spring brings to light the insidious killer of the Vietnam war: the pesticides the US government used on its own soldiers.

Reviewed by Georgia Ashworth

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Kameron Brook

I've been constructing reviews for over a decade and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. Most of the reviews will be featured on my blog (Kam's Place), Pinterest, Instagram, Goodreads, and X (formerly Twitter.) Don't forget to tip your waitress! :D

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Georgia Ashworth

My name is Georgia Ashworth and I have always believed in the power of an excellent book. I read a real mix of genres, but I love epic worlds, unique concepts, beautiful language and satisfying endings.

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Here Are the 12 New Books You Should Read in July

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

E ven if you can’t escape rising summer temperatures to more comfortable climes, you can at least get lost in a good book . The best new books coming in July include Kevin Barry’s Western romance, Lev Grossman ’s reimagining of King Arthur’s legend, and Laura van den Berg ’s unsettling new novel set in Florida’s underbelly.

Keep Shark Week going with shark scientist Jasmin Graham’s debut memoir focused on her work with the most misunderstood fish in the sea. Hit the road with Turkish author Ayşegül Savaş’ third novel, about a couple running into unexpected trouble finding a new apartment for their family. And gaze deeply into beauty writer Sable Yong’s thoughtful essay collection on the role of vanity in today’s culture.

Here, the 12 new books you should read in July.

The Cliffs , J. Courtney Sullivan (July 2)

A decade ago, best-selling author J. Courtney Sullivan became obsessed with a purple Victorian mansion she discovered while on vacation in Maine. Now, that unique home is at the center of her haunting new novel, The Cliffs. After losing her mother, getting laid off, and separating from her husband, archivist Jane Flanagan returns to her coastal Maine hometown to discover that the long-abandoned gothic house she was obsessed with as a teen has a new owner. Genevieve, a wealthy outsider, has given the once-dilapidated dwelling a misbegotten makeover that she believes has awakened something sinister. In this provocative ghost story that questions how we right our wrongs of the past, the two must team up to rid the mysterious 19th-century home of its spirits and overcome their own demons.

Buy Now: The Cliffs on Bookshop | Amazon

The Heart in Winter , Kevin Barry (July 9)

The Heart in Winter, Irish author Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, is a rollicking romance that is as wild as the Old West where it takes place. In 1891 Butte, Mont., a reckless young poet and doper named Tom Rourke falls in love with Polly Gillespie, the new wife of the extremely devout captain of the local copper mine. The twosome ride off on a stolen horse together toward San Francisco, only to be pursued by a posse of mad gunmen hired by Polly’s husband. In order to survive in this rip-roaring love story, the outlaws make choices they may live to regret.

Buy Now: The Heart in Winter on Bookshop | Amazon

State of Paradise , Laura van den Berg (July 9)

In Laura van den Berg’s State of Paradise, a ghostwriter travels to Florida during an unspecified pandemic to look after her aging mother. But when she arrives, the unnamed narrator discovers that it’s her little sister who really needs help. Struggling to process the death of their father, her sibling has become obsessed with a virtual reality headset that allows her to reconnect with the dead. Then she suddenly goes missing, alongside countless other Floridians, leading the protagonist to launch an investigation into the mysterious tech company behind the headsets. What ensues is a page-turning story about the challenges of learning to let go.

Buy Now: State of Paradise on Bookshop | Amazon

The Anthropologists , Ayşegül Savaş (July 9)

Inspired by her 2021 New Yorker short story, “ Future Selves ,” Ayşegül Savaş’ perceptive new novel, The Anthropologists , follows a nomadic couple as they struggle to find an apartment in an unnamed foreign city. Asya and Manu, a documentarian and nonprofit worker, are looking to finally put down roots together in a place that is all their own and nothing like where they came from. But as they tour each real-estate listing, envisioning what their future could look like, something always seems off, and they can’t quite place why. The idealistic lovers find themselves chafing against society’s idea of adulthood and look to kindred spirits—a reticent bon vivant, a lonely local, and their poetry-loving elderly neighbor—in hopes of figuring out how to live a good life.

Buy Now: The Anthropologists on Bookshop | Amazon

Die Hot With a Vengeance, Sable Yong (July 9)

With her debut essay collection, Die Hot With a Vengeance, Sable Yong looks to understand why vanity is still such a dirty word in a culture so obsessed with beauty. The former Allure editor offers thought-provoking analysis on social media’s impossible beauty standards , the rise of questionable wellness trends , and whether blondes really do have more fun. Going beyond just sharing her insights from working in the industry, she also weaves in stories of her own complicated relationship with self-image as she grew up feeling like an outsider in her mostly white neighborhood. With humor and candor, Die Hot With a Vengeance shows why beauty should be a tool of self-expression, not self-hate.

Buy Now: Die Hot With a Vengeance on Bookshop | Amazon

The Lucky Ones , Zara Chowdhary (July 16)

Zara Chowdhary’s debut memoir, The Lucky Ones, is a moving tale of survival that spans more than two decades of anti-Muslim violence in India . As a teenager in the early 2000s, Chowdhary bore witness to India’s worst communal riots in over 50 years, which turned Hindu and Muslim neighbors against one another. Chowdhary offers a harrowing account of the violence that occurred—and continues to this day —between the two groups, tracing the political, economic, and social repercussions of 80 years of ongoing bloodshed.

Buy Now: The Lucky Ones on Bookshop | Amazon

Sharks Don't Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist , Jasmin Graham (July 16)

Throughout shark scientist Jasmin Graham’s riveting debut memoir, Sharks Don’t Sink, she compares herself to the oft-misunderstood titular fish. Despite being denser than water, sharks manage to float because they just keep swimming. Graham had to do the same in order to move up in the white male-dominated profession of marine biology. She shares stories of growing up fishing with her dad and describes her struggle to find her place in academia as a Black woman and how that led her to start Minorities in Shark Sciences , an organization that provides support and opportunities for those underrepresented in the marine science field. Graham also makes the case for thinking about sharks differently, and urges us all to help protect these vulnerable, prehistoric creatures.

Buy Now: Sharks Don't Sink on Bookshop | Amazon

The Bright Sword , Lev Grossman (July 16)

Best-selling author Lev Grossman, a former TIME critic, is back with a new, sweeping medieval epic that offers a fresh take on the legend of King Arthur . In The Bright Sword, a gifted young knight named Collum arrives in Camelot in the hopes of competing for a spot at the Round Table. Sadly, though, he’s too late; King Arthur died in battle two weeks earlier, and the knights that survived him are more Bad News Bears than Game of Thrones . Still, Collum joins this lovable band of misfits realizing there’s too much at stake, and their fight has just begun. Together, the group becomes Camelot’s only hope of reclaiming Excalibur, reuniting the kingdom, and keeping Arthur’s foes—dastardly half-sister Morgan le Fay, his fallen bride Guinevere, and disgraced hero Lancelot—from reclaiming the crown.

Buy Now: The Bright Sword on Bookshop | Amazon

Liars , Sarah Manguso (July 23)

In essayist and poet Sarah Manguso’s unflinching second novel, a writer named Jane believes she’s found a supportive partner in John, a visual artist who becomes her husband. But after the birth of their first child, she begins to feel swallowed up by John’s ego. When her own career starts to take off, it’s John who pulls away, leaving Jane to take a closer look at their marriage, which, she realizes, may have never been on solid ground. As she examines the pieces of her life, Manguso’s plucky protagonist makes stirring observations about marriage and identity.

Buy Now: Liars on Bookshop | Amazon

Catalina , Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (July 23)

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s debut novel follows Catalina Ituralde, a brash undocumented immigrant from Ecuador on the verge of graduating from Harvard. She’s got a stacked resume and pretty good grades, but her immigration status has made her post-grad prospects rather bleak. This is a major problem for Catalina, who takes care of her grandparents on top of everything else. After years of working to infiltrate Harvard’s high society and as commencement looms over her head, she falls for a sanctimonious anthropology student and begins wondering if she’s found a solution to her woes or just another problem. This sardonic, semi-autobiographical novel is sure to delight fans of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot .

Buy Now: Catalina on Bookshop | Amazon

Someone Like Us , Dinaw Mengestu (July 30)

Dinaw Mengestu’s fourth novel, Someone Like Us , is a beguiling meditation on love, loss, and the need to belong. As his marriage unravels, war journalist Mamush returns to the tight-knit Ethiopian community in Washington, D.C. where he grew up to seek solace. But once there, he discovers that Samuel, his larger-than-life father figure, has unexpectedly died. In hopes of better understanding Samuel, Mamush embarks on a cross-country expedition to trace the older man’s immigration journey—only to unearth a shocking secret about his own lineage.

Buy Now: Someone Like Us on Bookshop | Amazon

They Dream in Gold , Mai Sennaar (July 30)

Playwright and filmmaker Mai Sennaar’s debut novel, They Dream in Gold, is a tender romance that spans decades, generations, and continents. It’s love at first sight when Bonnie and Mansour, African immigrants abandoned by their mothers, meet in New York in 1968. The two bond over Mansour’s music, a blend of Senegalese gospel and American jazz, which they each believe has the power to change the world. When Mansour goes missing while on tour in Spain, a pregnant Bonnie must team up with his mother, grandmother, and aunt to solve the mystery of his disappearance. In detailing their plight, Sennaar unveils a story about motherhood, the African diaspora, and the resilience of Black women.

Buy Now: They Dream in Gold on Bookshop | Amazon

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7 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Today is the first day of summer, and what better time to read a handful of books about adventures — or misadventures? Our recommended titles this week include Kevin Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park,” his good-natured romp about encountering bad nature on a trek through the Grand Canyon, along with David Nicholls’s novel about a happier hiking trip, Nicholas Kristof’s memoir of life as a roving reporter and Kassia St. Clair’s look at an epic intercontinental car race in the early days of the automobile. (You can’t even call it a road race, because along much of the route roads were nonexistent.)

On a more sober note, we also recommend Kim A. Wagner’s meticulously researched history of a forgotten military atrocity and Steven Johnson’s reconstruction of an era when anarchists and police forces duked it out in a battle of wits (and dynamite). In fiction, don’t miss Morgan Talty’s rich debut novel, “Fire Exit,” about a man exiled from the only land and culture he has ever known. Happy solstice, and happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

A WALK IN THE PARK: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon Kevin Fedarko

Two friends — the adventure writer Fedarko and the photographer Pete McBride — decide to walk the length of the Grand Canyon. What could go wrong? As this wildly entertaining book demonstrates, everything you can imagine, and then some. Fedarko takes us for a ride that’s often harrowing, frequently hilarious and, always, full of wonderful nature writing.

“Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces it, with page-turning action, startling insights and the kind of verbal grace that makes multipage descriptions of, say, a flock of pelicans feel riveting and new.”

From Blair Braverman’s review

Scribner | $32.50

THE INFERNAL MACHINE: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective Steven Johnson

From the 1880s to, roughly, 1920, anarchists were considered America’s greatest terror threat. And in telling the stories of Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Peter Kropotkin and the policemen who pursued them, Johnson makes it clear that his real protagonist is dynamite itself. While this functions as a lively history of an era in its own right, it’s also a timely meditation on the nature of violence, protest and American society.

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Balancing fraught history and modern collaboration in America’s ‘best idea’

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In new book, CU Boulder scholar Brooke Neely explores pathways to uphold Native sovereignty in U.S. national parks

Since Yellowstone became the United States’ first national park in 1872, these parks have existed in a dual space—praised, per author Wallace Stegner, as “the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst," while existing on Native lands.

National parks “have a fraught history in the United States and globally with respect to Indigenous lands. The creation of U.S. national parks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was part of a broader project to dispossess Native peoples of their homelands,” writes Brooke Neely , a research fellow in the University of Colorado Boulder Center of the American West , and her co-editors Christina Gish Hill  and Matthew J. Hill in National Parks, Native Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration , a recently published collection of case studies and interviews exploring pathways for collaboration that uphold tribal sovereignty.

Brooke Neely, a research fellow in the University of Colorado Boulder Center of the American West, co-edited  National Parks, Native Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration.

“There’s a tension between the ugly history of U.S. national parks and the ongoing efforts to assert Native peoples’ sovereign rights to these lands,” Neely explains. “A goal with this book is to rethink relationships between national parks and tribal nations, especially in light of shifts in federal policies over the past 20 years. It’s helpful to think that not everyone is going to come to the table with the same goals or interests, but we can find some room for collaboration.

“So, there are some discrepancies in terms of how the park service understands its job and the land resources, how it separates cultural resources versus natural resources, and the perspectives of tribes who may not distinguish between the two because they see the whole landscape as important or meaningful.”

Perspective of the tribes

Neely became interested in U.S. national parks and Native peoples in graduate school, when she studied Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Both sites exist on Native land, “so I was looking at how they grapple with this contested history,” Neely says. “How do national park sites work to include more people and tell a broader story?”

During the time Neely was doing her PhD research, Gerard Baker , a member of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, became superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial—the first Native American to earn the position. “I got interested in what he was working to do there,” Neely says, “bringing in the perspectives of the tribes, creating exhibits, bringing in Native speakers.”

In 2016, Neely was one of several researchers from the Center of the American West and the CU Boulder Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies to begin working with representatives from Rocky Mountain National Park and members of area tribes to expand interpretive programs and build collaborative relationships with the tribes.

Through this work and research she previously conducted for the 2014 sesquicentennial of the Sand Creek Massacre, Neely met Christina Gish Hill, an associate professor of anthropology and American Indian studies at Iowa State University, and Matthew Hill, an applied anthropologist who was principal investigator for two National Park Service projects focused on early American treaty-making and the Black Hills as a contested heritage landscape, her co-editors on National Parks, Native Sovereignty.

National Parks, Native Sovereignty   presents   case studies and interviews exploring pathways for collaboration in national parks that uphold tribal sovereignty.

Between 2016 and 2019, the researchers worked together on an ethnographic overview and assessment of Mount Rushmore for the National Park Service, seeking to understand the meaning of Mount Rushmore for Native people.

Talking about history

The idea for National Parks, Native Sovereignty came, in part, from a desire to highlight case studies from National Park Services sites, focusing on contemporary efforts to address the colonial history of U.S. national parks through research, outreach and collaborative partnerships with tribal nations, Neely says. It includes interviews with Gerard Baker and Max Bear, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, among others, as well as research and commentary from scholars and historians.

“Our goal was to represent a wide range of folks and the kind of work that’s being done currently,” Neely says. “There’s a federal mandate to consult with tribal nations, and it’s a unique mandate because tribes have sovereignty, so these interactions are government-to-government, and consultation can vary considerably across park sites.

“We focused on efforts over the last 15, 20 years to broaden that consultation and engagement. We wanted to look at what parks are doing to build relationships, to establish co-stewardship or co-management or some steps toward that.”

Neely and her co-editors chose interviews and scholarship that represent a range of national parks, “some of them in very emergent stages of exploring this kind of work, all the way to ones that have some kind of co-management relationship with tribes,” Neely says.

For example, Natasha Myhal , who earned her PhD in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies, wrote about indigenous connections at Rocky Mountain National Park, and Clint Carroll , an associate professor of Native American and Indigenous studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies, focused on Cherokee medicine keepers and the making of a plant-gathering agreement at Buffalo National River in Arkansas.

“There are 574 federally recognized tribal nations with different views on how they want to engage with public land agencies,” Neely says. “We consider the painful histories, the lands that have been taken illegally, the customs and traditions that existed for centuries before the parks were established. So, this book looks at the push and pull of this conflict and collaboration, and at the way we educate and talk about our shared history and shared landscapes in this country.”

Under the agreement, the National Park Service will issue an annual permit to the Cherokee Nation to gather 76 types of plants within the national river area, and the Cherokee Nation agrees to provide a list of those who will be gathering plants.

For Clint Carroll , an associate professor of Native American and Indigenous studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the agreement was a significant moment in his longtime work and research with the Cherokee people in Oklahoma on issues of land conservation and the perpetuation of land-based knowledge and ways of life.

Clint Carroll, an associate professor of Native American and Indigenous studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, collaborated with Cherokee Medicine Keepers and research colleagues to study the desirability and feasibility of a plant-gathering agreement in Buffalo National River.

In most situations, taking plants from national park land is against federal law, but a 2016 rule protected plant gathering by members of federally recognized tribes. The Cherokee Medicine Keepers, with whom Carroll closely works, contributed “their expertise on land-based knowledge and stewardship practices that provided the basis for such a landmark agreement,” Carroll wrote .

The Cherokee Medicine Keepers also were the experts with whom Carroll and his co-researchers—Richard Stoffle, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, and Michael Evans, a cultural anthropologist with the National Park Service—partnered while studying the desirability and feasibility of the Buffalo National River agreement, which research they detailed in “Returning to Gather: Cherokee Medicine Keepers, the National Park Service and the Making of a Plant-Gathering Agreement at Buffalo National River” for the book National Parks, Native Sovereignty .

“It was a multiyear collaboration that entailed multiple visits to the park and meetings with the elders,” Carroll explains. “One visit was to make sure the places elders would be gathering were safe and had amenities for them. The next visit entailed an ethnobotanical study, where a team of researchers from the University of Arizona interviewed the elders during a two-day event at Buffalo National River, asking them about the plants that would make up the list that is now represented through the agreement.”

Plants such as wild onion, sage, bloodroot, wild indigo and river cane have long been important to citizens of the Cherokee Nation for food, medicine, art and other purposes, Carroll explains. However, patchwork land divisions with differing ownership, as well as habitat loss related to climate change, have made some of these plants harder to access and harder to find.

In fact, many tribes still feel the effects of the Dawes Act , which divided communally held tribal lands into individually owned private property, so lands where Cherokee people had long gathered plants “can be private property, state land, other types of lands that Cherokee people simply don’t have access to anymore,” Carroll says.

“It’s an issue of not only limited access to land, but those places where Cherokee people were gathering, the plants they were seeking were less prevalent. So, it was these compounding factors that led to thinking about what else can we do to ensure that Cherokee people can continue to gather into generations beyond this one.”

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The Best Historical Fiction of 2024 So Far, According to Goodreads

Always books. Never boring.

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In that spirit, Goodreads has put together a list of 48 of the best historical fiction books out in the first half of 2024. These are the titles that have been added to the most “Want to Read” shelves on Goodreads and the ones that are getting good ratings by users — only titles with a 3.5 average rating or above are included. They’re arranged by time period, from 412 BCE all the way up to 1987. (And if you disagree about that being historical fiction, Goodreads says, “Yes, we regret to inform you that the 1980s are now firmly considered historical fiction. Time is a cruel mistress.”)

Here is a selection of the most popular historical fiction books that came out in the first half of 2024.

412 BCE: Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

1519: You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

1655: The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron

1730: All the World Beside by Garrard Conley

1851: The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

1861: James by Percival Everett

1864/2018: Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

1907: The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez

1935-1945: The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

1940: The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan

1950: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

1965: The Women by Kristin Hannah

the late 1960s: The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma

1987: Swift River by Essie J. Chambers

Check out the full list at Goodreads .

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in  Breaking in Books .

Also In This Story Stream

• The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week
• Arundhati Roy Awarded PEN Pinter Prize Weeks After Prosecution Threat
• Hillary Rodham Clinton is Publishing a New Memoir in September
• The Bestselling Books of the Week, According to All the Lists
• The Most Popular New Books on Goodreads in 2024 (So Far)
• The 2024 Locus Award Winners
• JAMES by Percival Everett Will Be Adapted for Film
• PIRANESI is Being Made Into a Stop-Motion Movie!
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The history of dc comics: who founded it, who owns it today.

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10 Most Expensive Comic Books of All Time

15 best-selling comics of all time, dc turns a beloved justice league hero into a worse villain than thanos & it's hard to see how he can be redeemed.

• DC Comics grew from a company founded in 1930, and has created iconic characters like Batman and Superman, shaping geek culture.
• Superman, the first superhero, was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, inspiring a genre shift in American comics.
• DC's Trinity, including Batman and Wonder Woman, cemented the company's legacy, leading to increased circulation and new characters.

DC Comics is one of the largest producers of comic books in the entire world, responsible for absolutely genre-defining characters such as Batman and Superman. These characters practically defined geeky culture in America when they first appeared and the story of DC's founding is just as fascinating as any superhero origin.

The first inkling of DC Comics was founded in 1930 by Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. The two made a fortune putting out pulp magazines, which were borderline pornography for the time. The women were about as naked as they could be by modern standards, and some people even went to jail over these comics. This eventually pushed the two to get out of the pulp magazine business and that's when, on January 11, 1935, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a prolific pulp fiction writer, was inspired to make his own kind of comics.

This resulted in the very first issue of New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine being released. Wheeler-Nicholson needed business partners for the new comics he was putting out, and Harry and Jack wanted to put the pornographic magazines behind them, which led to the three teaming up. Together they formed Detective Comics, Inc . Eventually, Nicholson would be bought out by Harry and Jack, who would then continue looking to expand their new business venture.

The company was named Detective Comics because it was a fairly new thing, and it primarily focused on detective or science fiction stories. When Detective Comics first came out, things like street crime and muggers were on the rise and these comics focused on stories that dealt with that, especially the detectives who solved them.

Comic book collectors have spent fortunes and lifetimes on the most valuable comics in history. These are the most expensive to ever be sold.

Superman Was The First Comic Book Superhero

Superman was created by joe shuster and jerry siegel.

Jerry Siegel was a long-time comic fan and would read any pulp fiction comic he could get his hands on and was constantly thinking about what his own stories would be. Joe Shuster was an artist who was remarkably skilled, but very poor and not formally educated at drawing. However, that didn't stop him from drawing on anything he could. Both natives of Cleveland, Jerry and Joe together imagined Superman, who was possibly inspired due to Jerry losing his father to a violent crime. It's easy to see why Jerry would want to imagine a hero who couldn't be stopped by bullets.

Jerry and Joe tried to submit their character to every editor across the country, and every single one rejected him. In a time of cowboys, detectives, and mad scientists, no one was doing superheroes.

Jerry and Joe tried to submit their character to every editor across the country, and every single one rejected him. In a time of cowboys, detectives, and mad scientists, no one was doing superheroes. Superman was the first of his kind and was a genre-defining character. After four years of trying to get Superman picked up, DC finally took the character, and he was seen in Action Comics #1, which went on to become one of the most valuable comics of all time . Superman's very first issue had him taking on government corruption, domestic violence, and urban crime , cementing him as a hero for the people.

Jerry Siegel has been recorded describing himself as meek and mild, which served as the inspiration for Clark Kent and Superman's dual identity. He said, "I was quite meek, and I was quite mild, and I thought, gee, wouldn't it be great if I was a mighty person and these girls just didn't know that this clod here was really somebody special." Joe Shuster expressed similar ideas, by claiming to always be very small and getting pushed around a bit, which likely contributed to just how physically powerful Superman is displayed.

From Marvel, DC, and Image Comics, these are the 15 highest-selling comics issues with records that speak volumes about their impact on the industry.

Jerry Siegel And Joe Shuster Created A Genre With Superman

Superman changed the face of american comics.

One of the major inspirations behind Superman was also the fear of the Nazis , which Jerry explained by saying, "Nazism was rising up and a lot of innocent people were being killed, countries were being invaded, a lot of innocents slaughtered, and I felt the world desperately needed a crusader, even a fictional one." Superman was an unbelievable success, selling more than a million copies with just three released issues. He was one of the first characters to explode from comics to radio, toys, and even the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Superman's creation was a cultural shift for America and was the biggest success DC had.

With Superman's unbelievable success, DC wanted to cash in on this success with another, so it sent out a nationwide call for the next big superhero, and two men answered. Bob Kane heard the call and quickly enlisted his friend Bill Finger, a former shoe salesman with aspirations of becoming a writer. The two of them spent a week brainstorming, and with great contributions from Bill Finger, Bob Kane presented the idea of Batman to DC Comics.

Barely a year after Superman's debut, Detective Comics revealed its newest character, Batman, in the pages of Detective Comics #27.

Batman went back to the earlier ideas of comics, with him being a detective who went after urban criminals, but this was different . It was a twist on the iconic pulp fiction comics. Instead of just a hard-boiled detective who fought crime as his job, Bruce Wayne was a man of wealth who chose to put on the Batsuit and go out and fight crime, purely to make the world a better place, as opposed to being obligated to do it to survive like the standard detective. It was a massive hit and the origin of Batman cemented him as one of DC's staple characters.

Batman's origin was first seen in Detective Comics #33 by Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Bob Kane, and Sheldon Moldoff.

Batman quickly became so popular that he was even able to rival Superman. With these two characters who were practically defining American comic culture, DC had more success than ever. But of course, as things get more popular, there are also more critics of it. One of the first critics of DC Comics was a man named William Moulton Marston, who claimed that DC wasn't using the comic medium to its full potential. In response to this criticism, DC offered him a job, and it was one of the best choices the company would ever make.

Wonder Woman Brings A New Perspective To DC Comics

The greatest female superhero of all time.

With a new position at DC Comics, Marston claimed that comics were far too masculine, and to remedy this, he created possibly the most famous female character of all time: Wonder Woman . Wonder Woman first debuted in All-Star Comics #8 by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, appearing in the very last story in this 26-story comic. Whereas Superman and Batman could be considered father figures to the fans reading, Wonder Woman was created to offer a mother figure for boys and girls to look up to.

William Moulton Marston was also the inventor of the Lie Detector machine, which was very likely the inspiration for Wonder Woman's iconic Lasso of Truth.

DC's Trinity Cemented The Company In American History

These are some of the most popular fictional heroes ever made.

And just like that, DC Comics had three iconic characters under its label. By 1945, comics had tripled their circulation, selling millions of issues every month , a far cry from the trashy pornographic magazines from just ten years earlier. This massive success of DC Comics inspired others to try and follow suit, and newsstands were quickly flooded with new characters and new worlds, and the public simply ate it up. It seemed there wasn't such a thing as too many comic books at the time. From here, DC simply kept pumping out new characters, and iconic ones like Green Lantern and Flash were quick to hit stands next.

This massive success of DC Comics inspired others to try and follow suit, and newsstands were quickly flooded with new characters and new worlds, and the public simply ate it up.

The only real competition that DC had was Captain Marvel from Fawcett Comics. This was a brilliant character because, while Batman and Superman were adults that kids could look up to, Captain Marvel was a character that kids could pretend to be . Captain Marvel, who would later be renamed to just Shazam , was a truly brilliant character in that he was a child who could transform into an all-powerful adult. At one point, Captain Marvel was even outselling Superman, but DC would eventually acquire Fawcett Comics and add the mighty Captain Marvel to its own roster of characters.

DC Comics Has Been One Of The Most Successful Comic Producers Ever Since

Nearly every character dc has is recognized the world over.

There would be a lot of changes for DC Comics over the decades. What once started as a business venture by three men to get out of a shady business ended up with artists creating some of the most popular and famous characters the world has ever seen. DC would eventually be bought by Kinney National Company in 1967, who then bought Warner Bros-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National then changed its name to Warner Communications Inc., which would also later merge with Time Inc., which became Time-Warner. Today, DC Comics is part of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Overall, DC Comics remains one of the biggest names in American comic books, and it's rightly deserved as it helped shape the genre.

The icon who launched the entire world of superheroes, the last son of Krypton escaped his dying world to crash land on Earth and be raised as Clark Kent. The world knows him better as Superman, the Man of Steel, the leader of the Justice League, and the most well-known hero in the DC Comics Universe. Blessed with the powers of a demigod, Kal-El of Krypton fights enemies both small and cosmic in his endless pursuit of truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.

One of DC's most iconic heroes, Batman is the vigilante superhero persona of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Forged by tragedy with the death of his parents, Bruce dedicated his life to becoming the world's leading martial artist, detective, and tactician. Recruiting an entire family of allies and sidekicks, Bruce wages war on evil as the dark knight of his hometown, Gotham City.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is the superhero identity of Diana, Princess of the Amazons. Created on the island of Themyscira, Wonder Woman is a super-powered demi-goddess with extreme physical strength who utilizes magical gifts (like her famous Lasso of Truth) to defeat her foes. As mighty as her fellow heroes Superman and the Justice League, Wonder Woman is unmatched in her compassion and virtue.

The Best Marvel Comics Everyone Should Read

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Best current marvel titles, classic spider-man stories, classic avengers stories, classic x-men titles, classic marvel events and miniseries:.

Marvel is the number one name in superhero comics. The publisher has dominated the industry for decades, creating some of the greatest superheroes and weaving many gripping stories. Marvel's audience has grown thanks to the MCU, introducing many to classic characters and plotlines.

From Silver Age classics to modern epics, Marvel has no shortage of incredible comics that connect with readers. With so many titles, deciding what to read next can be difficult. No matter if one is a casual reader or a long-time Marvel fan, there are certain comics everyone should read.

Updated by John Dodge on June 29, 2024: The Krakoan Era is over, the Marvel Universe is under siege from Blade's vampire army, and a whole new hunt for the Infinity Stones is about to begin. With so many major shakeups taking place simultaneously, readers can be forgiven if they're not sure where to jump in for any given event, which means there has never been a better time for a refresher on the best Marvel Comics that every reader should dive into.

Blood Hunt Is Guaranteed To Be A Lot Of Fun

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The past five years have been some of the most trying times that the Avengers have ever faced, and a handful of battles prove it.

Marvel is all about event books, especially when the summer hits. Blood Hunt is Marvel's big line-wide crossover for 2024, a story that pits the heroes of the Marvel Universe against vampires. However, these aren't just any vampires. Blood Hunt/X-Men Free Comic Book Day saw a mysterious enemy use the power of the Darkforce Dimension to transform people worldwide into vampires. As the heroes begin to fight back, even Dracula himself is at a loss for who's in command of these bloodsuckers.

Blood Hunt combines Marvel's biggest up-and-coming writer - Jed MacKay - with artist Pepe Larraz, who, up until now, was known for his work on X-Men events. Blood Hunt is bringing the heroes out of the woodwork , and Marvel is kicking things into overdrive with the horror of this event. Each issue of Blood Hunt has an "unrated" version, giving readers more gore for their buck. Blood Hunt has great writing and killer art and is the kind of event that feels like a palette cleanser from the usual Marvel event fare - something low-stakes and fun.

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20 Most Popular Marvel Characters, Ranked

Whether they received popularity from the MCU or they've always been fan-favorites, everyone knows the names of Marvel's most popular characters.

Marvel has issue envy. DC has been continually publishing books since the Golden Age of comics, with several books hitting issue one thousand. Marvel has constantly figured out ways to artificially reach the same number with books like Marvel Comics #1000, Amazing Fantasy #1000, and Marvel Age #1000, and has taken to consolidating numbering so that other books can reach high numbers. X-Men (Vol. 6) #35 is one of these, as it is being billed as the 700th issue of Uncanny X-Men .

Now, this doesn't really make any sense because it counts issues of X-Men in that number, which is a completely different book with a completely different legacy, but Marvel's going Marvel. All of that said, this issue is still very important. It's the official end of the Krakoa Age, ending the five-year-long story with a bang. The issue will also bring back classic X-Men creators like Chris Claremont and Simonson and upcoming Uncanny X-Men writer Gail Simone. This issue is a can't-miss for any fan of the X-Men.

Wolverine: Madripoor Knights Takes Readers Back To A Classic Wolverine Story

Marvel has been pulling out all the stops for Wolverine's 50th anniversary. Multiple miniseries have been announced, some going back to the best eras of Wolverine , like Wolverine: Madripoor Knights. This issue occurs in the aftermath of the classic Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #268 , which teamed Wolverine, Captain America, and Black Widow together in Madripoor. Readers never got to see the continuation of their adventure against the Hand, and that's where Wolverine: Madripoor Knights comes in.

This book sees the three heroes team up to battle the Hand in Madripoor. What makes it even better is that it's written by Uncanny X-Men legend Chris Claremont, who wrote the original issue. Claremont knows how to load a comic with action and plot, making this a treat for old-school fans and newer readers who want to see what Claremont is about. Artist Edgar Salazar does a brilliant job with this one, giving readers a Wolverine story for the ages.

Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider Brings The Heroine To The 616 Universe

Spider-Gwen's popularity has skyrocketed over the years. Part of that is her place in the Spider-Verse movies, with Marvel and Disney also putting her everywhere they can to take advantage of that. Spider-Gwen has had several ongoing series over the years, but they usually occur in her own universe - Earth-65. However, with the character bigger than ever, Marvel has pulled a Miles Morales with her and brought her to the main Marvel Universe .

Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider is the first issue in a new era for the spider-powered Gwen Stacy. This book is the ground floor for anyone interested in the character. Spider-Gwen has a whole new universe in front of her, and it will be great to see where this book takes her. Will she end up with Miles? Start weirding out Peter by looking like his dead girlfriend? There are many questions to answer, making this new book very exciting.

X-Men '97 Connects The New Series With Its Animated Predecessor

X-Men '97 is all the rage right now . The Disney+ animated series would always be a hit, but no one imagined it would be this big. The new show picks up as if the old show never ended, but there is a bit of a gap, one that is filled by Marvel's newest X-Men series - X-Men '97 . The comic connects the dots between the two series as the X-Men face off against their worst enemies. This book is perfect for anyone who loves the new animated series.

What makes it even better is that it's from writer Steve Foxe and artist Salva Espin. Foxe and Espin had teamed up previously on House Of XCII, a book that took the Krakoa Era of X-Men comics and adapted it using the characters and storylines from the old animated series. That six-issue series shows that this team understands the X-Men of the animated series like no other, and allowing them to fill in the gaps between the new and old show has made for an excellent comic.

Ultimate X-Men Takes Mutants To New Places

The new Ultimate Universe has been a smash hit with fans. It's basically impossible to find first-printing copies of the first issues, and fans and critics are praising each of the three launch books. Ultimate X-Men was the most interesting of the three for many fans, all because of writer/artist Peach Momoko. Momoko's manga sensibilities have given readers great stories like Demon Days , and she's known for doing unconventional stories, using Japanese culture to recontextualize American comic concepts. Putting her on Ultimate X-Men was an interesting choice, and she knocked it out of the park with the book's first issue.

The first issue focuses on Hisako Ichiki, a character familiar to X-Men fans as Armor. She's lost her best friend Tsurayaba and is stalked by a dark force. She's unpopular in school and things get a lot worse for her when she manifests giant energy armor. Ultimate X-Men feels like a horror manga , taking the building blocks of the typical mutant comics and looking at them from a different perspective. This book is perfect for fans who want more from their X-Men comics than they've seen before. It's a beautiful comic.

Ultimate Black Panther Takes The Mythos To New Places

10 Marvel Villains Who Became Deadly Threats in Alternate Realities

Popular Marvel villains like Doctor Doom and Red Skull often face defeat, but in other realities, they became powerful tyrants who reshaped the world.

Black Panther fans have gotten a lot of great Black Panther stories in the last decade. Marvel has made sure to put him front and center, where the character has always belonged, and he hasn't been without a solo book in ages. The new Ultimate Universe is the perfect place for a new Black Panther comic . The Maker has created a universe where the heroes never dawned, so seeing how that affects the Black Panther mythos is a great idea.

Marvel put the perfect team on this book, as Bryan Edward Hill has been killing it on Blade and Stefano Caselli has become a superstar because of his work on the X-Men books during the Krakoa Era. The book introduces the new status quo for Black Panther, showing readers old characters in new ways. It also takes the idea of the god Khonshu and the concept of Moon Knight in an entirely new direction. This book is perfect for fans who want to get in on the ground floor with Black Panther, taking the familiar and tweaking it just enough to make it something new and exciting.

Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver Continues The Story Of The Maximoffs

Scarlet Witch is more popular than ever, mostly thanks to the MCU, and got another chance at solo book stardom under the pen of Steve Orlando. Scarlet Witch (Vol. 3) took readers into her life and gave fans the kind of Scarlet Witch stories they always wanted. Readers get a glimpse of her and Quicksilver working together, reminding readers of how great they are as a team. Scarlet Witch (Vol. 3) ended, but the adventures of Wanda Maximoff weren't over.

Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver sees Orlando joined by artist Lorenzo Tammeta to tell the story of the two siblings working together. The book opens with the two of them not very happy with each other, but they're forced to work together when the Wizard attacks with his Frightful Four Hundred. This book gives readers all the exciting magical adventures they expected, along with some great drama to keep them coming back.

Ultimate Spider-Man Is The First Book In A New Ultimate Marvel Universe

In 2000, Ultimate Spider-Man kicked off the original Ultimate Universe; two decades later, it's doing so again. Writer Jonathan Hickman can do whatever he wants at Marvel, and his recent resurrection of the Ultimate Universe has already made fans extremely happy. The man who brought readers the best Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men stories of the 2010s has turned his eyes to Spider-Man, but this new Ultimate Spider-Man isn't the young one who came before. No, this new Peter Parker is in his mid-thirties, married with children to Mary Jane.

Uncle Ben is still alive and working at The Daily Bugle . J. Jonah Jameson is actually friendly with Peter. Given a gift from this universe's Tony Stark, Peter decides it's time to take back who he could have been from the Maker, who has engineered this new universe to be exactly what he wants it to be, and he didn't want a Spider-Man. Being a Spider-Man fan can be tough, but Ultimate Spider-Man definitely feels like a balm to a beaten fandom. Readers have wanted Peter and Mary Jane back together for years, and this book gives them that and more. Hickman is an amazing superhero writer, and having him unleashed on a new Spider-Man book in his very own Ultimate Universe is something everyone can be happy about .

Superior Spider-Man Brings Back A Fan-Favorite Spider-Man

Every Spider-Man Comic Currently Running

Exploring Spider-Man's latest adventures, Marvel treats the Web-slinger's fans to thrilling comics every week.

Superior Spider-Man is a fan-favorite version of the Web-Slinger. Putting Doctor Octavious into the body of Peter Parker was risky, but it paid off. The post- One More Day Spider-Man comics needed a serious shake-up, and the series delivered. Superior Spider-Man is widely considered the best part of Dan Slott's long run on Spider-Man. Ten years later, it's still beloved by fans.

Superior Spider-Man brings original writer Dan Slott back and teams him with classic Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley. The first issue revolves around an enemy of Superior Spider-Man attacking Spider-Man, endangering the city, just as Doc Ock realizes. Slott and Bagley are Spider-Man pros, so teaming them up for this story bodes very well for fans.

Captain Marvel Flies High Again

Captain Marvel is coming off a brilliant five-year run. Marvel has teamed up with two up-and-coming creators — Alyssa Wong and Jan Bazaluda — to relaunch Carol Danvers' adventures. The good Captain gets a new costume, supporting cast, and status quo in this new book, ready for a new era of Captain Marvel comics.

Captain Marvel is Earth's first line of defense, but what happens when an enemy can get through that? Can Captain Marvel still save the day? Wong and Bazaluda show readers Captain Marvel as they've never seen her before, pushing her to brand new heights.

Captain America (Vol. 11) Puts A Great Creative Team On The Sentinel Of Liberty

J. Michael Straczynski created Babylon 5 and started doing comics in the late '90s with Rising Stars. He'd soon move to Marvel, taking over The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Thor. Straczynski gave readers the best Spider-Man of the 21st century but eventually moved away from Marvel. In 2023, he returned, joining with artist Jesus Saiz for a new volume of Captain America.

This volume of Captain America follows Cap as he deals with a threat from his past while also working to help his old neighborhood. This is classic Steve Rogers, playing on Captain America's history and giving readers a great ride. Fans who want a new Captain America need to check this one out.

The Immortal Thor Promises To Be A Brilliant Take On The Classic Character

REVIEW: Marvel's Immortal Thor #1

Thor is keeping the peace in all realms, as is his duty as king, but something dark festers in the Outyards as mysterious figures make their moves.

Writer Al Ewing is Marvel's most beloved current writer. Pretty much everything Ewing does sells, and when Ewing is on, he's the best. He proved this to the world with The Immortal Hulk, a book widely considered the best Hulk in decades. That's why The Immortal Thor , with artist Martin Coccolo, excites readers so much.

Thor has a rich history , and unleashing Ewing on it is just what everyone ordered. Thor is facing off against a new threat, one seemingly greater than anything he faced before. Ewing and Coccolo did a fabulous job on the first issue, and it's certain to be a brilliant ride. The Immortal Thor has an immaculate pedigree; everyone should get in on the ground floor.

Daredevil Continues Its Run Of Excellence

Daredevil , in the last few years, has been phenomenal. Writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Marco Checchetto have been killing it, but all good things must end. However, that doesn't mean Daredevil is going to suffer that much. Marvel has looked out for Daredevil for years now by putting the best writers and artists in the book, and the newest series is no different.

A new chapter begins in Matt Murdock's life in writer Saladin Ahmed and artist Aaron Kuder's Daredevil run. This book is on fire since Daredevil's life is always in flux. Ahmed and Kuder are an intriguing team to pick for ol'Hornhead, and the comic continues to deliver.

The Incredible Hulk Is A New Horror Take On The Character

Hulk was vastly underrated by readers. The book had the tough job of following The Immortal Hulk , which is considered the best Hulk book of the last decade by far. Many even consider it the best Marvel book of the last decade. Fans wanted something more like that and weren't quiet about it. Marvel got the message and looks to serve those fans with The Incredible Hulk, by writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Nic Klein.

Johnson and Klein kick off a new Hulk epic with this book: The Age of Monsters. Horror has always been an important part of the Hulk and was key to The Immortal Hulk' s success. Putting out a new Hulk horror book is exactly what many fans want, and Johnson and Klein are an amazing team to bring that to readers. The first issue dropped in June, and it quickly became a must-read.

The Avengers Promises To Bring Earth's Mightiest Heroes To The Top Of The Charts

The Avengers are Marvel's most powerful team , but their book hasn't exactly been the most powerful when it comes to sales and reader esteem. After Jason Aaron's five-year run, Marvel relaunched The Avengers in May with a new first issue by rising superstar writer Jed MacKay and artist C.F. Villa. Building out of 2022's Timeless #1 , The Avengers sees Captain Marvel create a new team of Avengers.

Carol is joined by Iron Man, Thor, Sam Wilson as Captain America, Black Panther, the Vision, and Scarlet Witch. It's a classic team with the right mixture of new. MacKay hasn't missed at Marvel, giving fans high hopes for The Avengers. The first issue proved a success with readers, and there's plenty more where that came from.

Doctor Strange Is A Magical Good Time

REVIEW: Marvel's Doctor Strange #1

Stephen Strange has returned to the world of the living and is ready for a brand-new solo series in Doctor Strange #1.

The Sorcerers Supreme have been powerful defenders for millennia, and Stephen Strange's death saw his wife Clea step up to do the job. Clea is a great protector of reality, but the doctor is in again. Doctor Strange, by writer Jed MacKay and artist Pasqual Ferry, brings back the classic hero, ready to protect Earth and beyond from the most dangerous threats.

MacKay was writing the Clea starring Strange , which was a fan favorite book, so the Doctor is in good hands. Ferry is a brilliant artist who definitely does justice to Strange's amazing adventures. Reuniting the Strange, Wong, and Clea, this book has everything fans could want. This is to say nothing of how the title ties into the events of Marvel's Blood Hunt , which have pushed the series into abject horror territory along with the rest of the Marvel Universe.

Fantastic Four Is The Best the Classic Team Has Been In Ages

The Fantastic Four is a unique Marvel team, standing among the industry's best sci-fi books, but they've had a rough go of things since writer Jonathan Hickman left the book. While Matt Fraction and James Robinson still had good runs, Marvel canceled the book because they didn't have the film rights. Once Disney bought 20th Century Fox, they put out another book with divisive writer Dan Slott at the helm.

After Slott left, Marvel relaunched the book with writer Ryan North and artist Iban Coello. The book began after a mysterious disaster that broke the FF up. However, the story has led them back together, ready to reveal what happened. While this type of mystery box storytelling hasn't worked with The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four has been a hit with readers.

Spider-Man: Blue Dug Deep Into the Lasting Impact of One of Peter Parker's Darkest Moments

The creative team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale broke new ground with their 2001 series Daredevil: Yellow , which was such a success that it was followed up by 2003's Hulk: Gray and 2008's Captain America: White . In 2022, it was Spider-Man's turn to star in one of Loeb and Sale's iconic creations, and Spider-Man: Blue was everything that fans could have asked for.

Peter Parker tells the story as he recounts the short-lived love he shared with Gwen Stacy. Spider-Man: Blue is a case study of one of the most tragic romances in pop culture and a font of insight into one of its greatest heroes. More importantly, it highlights the impact that Gwen Stacy had not just on Peter Parker but on everyone whose life she was a part of, including Mary Jane Watson.

Spider-Man: Life Story Rewrote Peter Parker's Entire Life

2019's Spider-Man: Life Story #1 brought readers all the way back to 1962 to witness Peter Parker's astonishing transformation all over again. However, the issue didn't stop there as it continued to follow Peter's journey as Spider-Man throughout the rest of the 1960s. Apart from giving readers a glimpse into the earliest days of a familiar variant of Peter Parker, the series' first issue also set the standard for every entry to come.

Over the course of six issues chronicling six decades, Spider-Man: Life Story charted Peter Parker's entire history , or at least his entire career as the titular Wall-Crawler. Unsurprisingly, this tale culminated in the death of Peter Parker, one that is every bit as heroic as the man himself. And, while it might not be the longest story in the wider Spider-Man mythos, it still manages to cover more ground than almost any other.

Avengers: Under Siege Followed The Team At Their Lowest

The Avengers have become the most popular superhero team ever because of the MCU. For fans who want to see why they earned the appellation "Earth's Greatest Heroes" in the comics, they need look no further than Avengers: Under Siege, by writer Roger Stern and artist John Buscema. The story pits the team against the Masters of Evil in their most desperate battle.

Under Siege throws the Avengers into a situation they aren't used to, defeated by their enemies. With their home taken from them and their greatest members down and out, the team has to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. Stern and Buscema are an amazing team, and they created an Avengers story no one will forget.

Captain America By Ed Brubaker Omnibus Vol. 1 Contains The Greatest Modern Captain America Story

Captain America comics have had their ups and downs in quality, but Ed Brubaker has had the best overall run in decades. Captain America By Ed Brubaker Omnibus Vol. 1 , with artists Steve Epting, Mike Perkins, and Michael Lark, begins Brubaker's epic, collecting the first twenty-five issues of his run, including the classic Winter Soldier storyline.

Collecting the entire epic of Captain America's battle against his former friend, Captain America By Ed Brubaker Omnibus Vol. 1 presents peak Captain America. There are few Cap stories out there that can match it, and it's definitely a story that every Marvel fan needs to check out. There's a reason Captain America: The Winter Soldier is such a great movie — because its source material is a million times better.

X-Men: Mutant Genesis Is A Classic New Beginning

The X-Men are among Marvel's most important teams, with many excellent stories. X-Men: Mutant Genesis, by writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee, lays out exactly who the X-Men are at their core. Introducing the Blue Team to readers and pitting them against Magneto and his Acolytes, it's as close to a perfect encapsulation of the X-Men as possible.

X-Men: Mutant Genesis delivers an action-packed epic with killer art, amazing writing, and an introduction to the X-Men mythos that will make a new reader want to dive deeper. Even thirty years later, it still stands out as a highlight for the X-Men.

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Is A Superhero Western Unlike Anything Else Out There

Old Man Logan #1

An older version of Wolverine wakes up in the present, convinced he can stop his future from happening, in Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's "Old Man Logan" #1.

Wolverine has starred in some harrowing adventures. The character works in just about any type of story, and Old Man Logan, by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, is a perfect example of that. The story is basically a superhero Western set in an apocalyptic future.

Old Man Logan follows a pacifist Wolverine embarking on one last job with an elderly Hawkeye to get money to pay off the Hulk Gang. An action-packed book full of great characterization and world-building, it shows the versatility of Wolverine and the Marvel Universe in general. It's a blood-soaked epic, and it behooves every Marvel fan to read it.

Infinity War Doesn't Get The Credit It Deserves

Infinity War, by writer Jim Starlin and artist Ron Lim, is the sequel to Infinity Gauntlet, which is a tough act to follow. For this reason, Infinity War remains Marvel's most underrated event book , overshadowed by what came before. This is completely unfair to the comic, which, in many ways, is superior to its predecessor.

Infinity War follows the heroes of the Marvel Universe battling against a hidden foe, Adam Warlock's dark side, the Magus, who has them beaten at every turn. Starring the best and brightest Marvel heroes, it even makes Thanos a convincing hero. It's a masterwork of plot and art, with brilliant characterization and pulse-pounding action.

Secret Wars (2015) Is The Best Marvel Event Of The 21st Century

Marvel's event cycle throughout the 2000s hurt the publisher in many ways, but it produced some fantastic event books. One of the best events is 2015's Secret Wars , by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic. Building out of Hickman's Fantastic Four, Avengers, and New Avengers , it presented the aftermath of the Incursions, with Doctor Doom of all people saving creation.

More than just a simple battle between the heroes and Doctor Doom, Hickman dives deep into Doom and his conflict with Reed Richards in this story. Between that and Ribic's breathtaking art, Secret Wars demonstrates exactly what a Marvel comic can do.

Marvel Boy (Vol. 2) Is Grant Morrison At Their Finest

Every X-Men Comic Currently Running

From Marvel's main X-Men comics to Fall of X tie-ins, and limited series, every month offers dozens of adventures for new and dedicated fans to enjoy.

Grant Morrison's time at Marvel was short, but they produced some great work. One of the best is Marvel Boy, with artist J. G. Jones. This six-issue Marvel masterpiece stars Noh-Varr, a genetically engineered Kree soldier from an alternate universe. His ship is shot down in the 616 universe, the crew is killed, and he's captured by the evil Doctor Midas and his daughter Oubliette.

What follows is Morrison unleashing their personal brand of superhero wildness on the Marvel Universe. Morrison makes Noh-Varr into the perfect superpowered brat, but one who readers can't help but sympathize with. Marvel Boy is a unique comic that finds a way to impress and surprise readers. Full of big ideas, wonderful art, and more witty humor than one can shake a stick at, Marvel Boy proves a wild ride that has to be read to be believed.

Earth X Is A Love Letter To Marvel's Past Set In Its Future

Superhero comics are full of amazing alternate universes, and Marvel is no different. One of the finest comes from Earth X, based on an idea from and with covers by Alex Ross, written by Jim Krueger, with art by John Paul Leon. In an alternate future where everyone has superpowers, the Inhumans return with a warning just as a new evil attacks the US.

Earth X touches on every corner of the Marvel Universe in an epic that will change how readers look at Marvel forever. Tying the origin of superpowers to its narrative, it's as much about Marvel's history as it is about its future. Earth X is brilliant because it works for casual fans, as each issue kicks off with several pages describing the origin of an important character, team, or faction, as well as for fans who know everything about Marvel. While its sequels Universe X and Paradise X aren't in the same league, Earth X is basically perfection.

Infinity Gauntlet Is Ridiculously Important To Marvel History

Infinity Gauntlet redefined the event book at Marvel . Written by writer Jim Starlin with art by George Pèrez and Ron Lim, the epic battle between the heroes and cosmic beings of Marvel against the Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Thanos has become legendary in the minds of Marvel fans. This book took the dormant event book formula pioneered by classics like Secret Wars (1984) and Crisis On Infinite Earths, dusted it off, and showed readers that having a massive epic with the greatest heroes versus the most powerful villains can be great again if its done right.

This amazing story inspired the MCU to become the biggest movie franchise ever. Infinity Gauntlet made Thanos a big deal again in the Marvel Universe, reintroduced Adam Warlock to a new generation of readers, and is chock-full of action. It's expertly written and masterfully drawn, a true epic in every sense of the word.

Squadron Supreme Is A Forgotten Classic

Marvel doesn't have the same artistic pedigree as DC, but it has some gems of its own. Foremost among them is Squadron Supreme, by writer Mark Gruenwald and artists Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, and John Buscema. Its complicated and ambiguous narrative stars Marvel's Justice League pastiche deciding to take power over their world. What follows is a story that asks questions about how much power is too much and how much freedom people are willing to sacrifice for safety. It's a much smarter comic than it gets credit for.

Squadron Supreme took a serious look at superheroes in a way few Marvel books have. It's still definitely a Marvel-style superhero comic. However, that's not always bad, and Squadron Supreme has moments of brilliance. Squadron Supreme is a powerful story that questions the role of superheroes in its world and what could happen in a real-world setting if people with superpowers existed.

Marvel is a multimedia powerhouse encompassing comic books, movies, TV shows, and more, captivating audiences with its iconic characters, thrilling narratives, and diverse worlds. From the legendary Avengers to the street-level heroes like Daredevil, Marvel's universe is vast and ever-expanding.

The Ten Best History Books of 2019

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and help explain how we got to where we are today

Angela Serratore

Contributing writer

The history books we loved most in 2019 span centuries, nations and wars. From womanhood to nationhood, they challenge the construction of identity and mythology. They tell the stories of celebrity weddings, bootlegging trials, and people, places and things we thought we knew but prove, upon closer inspection, to be far more complex.

The Season: A Social History of the Debutante

When Consuelo Vanderbilt of the wealthy American Vanderbilt family married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895, she was one of the most famous debutantes in the world, at a time when interest in the doings of the rich had never been more scrutinized. Consuelo had spent her whole life training to marry a royal, and the event itself was covered in major newspapers across the globe. In The Season: A Social History of the Debutante , author Kristen Richardson contextualizes Consuelo and her wedding—and those of other famous debutantes, or young women making their societal debut, from the 1600s to today. The book is a centuries-spanning look at how debutantes and their rituals, from the antebellum South to modern-day Russia, have shaped marriage and womanhood in America and abroad.

The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America

For a time, George Remus had it all. The most successful bootlegger in America, Cincinnati’s Remus controlled nearly 30 percent of illegal liquor in the United States in the early 1920s. Historian and bestselling author Karen Abbott traces the rise of Remus—he was a pharmacist and a defense attorney—and the inevitable fall as he found himself on trial not just for bootlegging, but for the murder of his own wife. In an interview with Smithsonian , Abbott talked about the connection between Remus and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby: “I think Gatsby and Remus both had these longings of belonging to a world that didn't wholly accept them or fully understand them. Even if Fitzgerald never met Remus, everybody knew who George Remus was by the time Fitzgerald started to draft The Great Gatsby .”

Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power

Many Americans know the names of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, key figures in North American Indigenous history. In his new book, Oxford history professor Pekka Hämäläinen (his previous book, The Comanche Empire , won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 2009) looks at the history of the Lakota Nation as other historians have looked at ancient Rome—a massive (and massively adaptive) empire that shaped the literal landscape of the Western United States as well as the fates of Indigenous groups for centuries.

American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation

Civil Rights, free love and anti-war protests have become synonymous with the 1960s, but in American Radicals , Holly Jackson, an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, traces these movements back a century in a reconsideration of radical protest and social upheaval in the mid-19th century. While some of the names that appear in Jackson’s story, like famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, will be familiar to American history buffs, she also revives forgotten figures like Frances Wright, an heiress whose protests against the institution of marriage inspired Walt Whitman to call her “one of the best [characters] in history, though also one of the least understood.”

Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence

Only six people attended Thomas Paine’s funeral. Once the most famous writer in the American colonies (and, later, the United States of America), the corsetmaker-turned-pamphleteer had been virtually expelled from public life for his radical beliefs and writings, like the ones that suggested a tax on landowners could be used to fund basic income for everyone else. Harlow Giles Unger, a renowned biographer of the Founding Fathers, looks at the Paine we know and the one we don’t, in his telling of the story of a man who pursued Enlightenment ideals even when those ideals ran afoul of what was socially acceptable.

The Cigarette: A Political History

As every day a new story about the dangers of vaping—or the fervent support of vape fans—appears, historian Sarah Milov’s The Cigarette looks at the history of smoking in the United States and reminds us that once upon a time, the government was more concerned with the rights of tobacco companies than the rights of non-smokers. The book deftly connects the rise in organized opponents to smoking to food safety, car safety and other consumer rights movements of the 20th century. Kirkus says Milov “mixes big-picture academic theory with fascinating, specific details to illuminate the rise and fall of tobacco production.”

Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom

In Policing the Open Road , legal historian Sarah A. Seo argues that while cars (and highways, for that matter) have long been associated with freedom in the eyes of American drivers, their advent and rapid domination of travel is the basis for a radical increase in policing and criminalization. From traffic stops to parking tickets, Seo traces the history of cars alongside the history of crime and discovers that the two are inextricably linked. “At times,” says Hua Hsu in The New Yorker , Seo’s work “feels like an underground history―of closeted gay men testing the limits of privacy; of African-Americans, like Jack Johnson or Martin Luther King, Jr., simply trying to get from one place to another.”

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Using the oral histories of formerly enslaved people, financial records and property history, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, makes a clear case that in the American South, many white women weren’t just complicit in the system of chattel slavery—they actively encouraged and benefited from it. Jones-Rogers’s work dismantles the notion that white women in slaveholding families were silent actors—instead, she argues, they used the institution of slavery to build a specific concept of womanhood that shaped the history of the nation before and after the Civil War.

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

In 1856, the United States passed a law that entitled citizens to take possession of any unclaimed island containing guano deposits—guano, of course, being the excrement of bats. Guano is an excellent fertilizer, and over the course of the 20th century, the U.S. claimed dozens of small islands in remote parts of the world, turning them into territories with few rights of their own. The story of guano is one of many that touch upon the empire forged by the U.S. from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Daniel Immerwahr, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, tells the often brutal, often tragic stories of these territories in an attempt to make the ‘Greater United States’ truly part of U.S. history.

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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Last updated: June 25, 2024

We’ve spoken to hundreds of historians asking them to recommend the best history books (and explain what’s so good about them in an in-depth interview). Here are some of the popular history books that have been recommended. For a more detailed look at different people, times or places in history, we've divided our recommendations into a number of sections:

Books on world history , including  American , Chinese, French , Russian ,  German  or  British history . The big global conflicts of the 20th century remain a key source of fascination, and we have a large number of book recommendations on World War II .

Book recommendations about key historical figures —like Hitler ,  Alexander the Great , Catherine the Great , Napoleon  and  Genghis Khan —are among the most popular on our site.

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Ancient history ,  medieval history and modern history. We also have book recommendations on early modern history and contemporary history (history of the present).

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The Wolfson History Prize is the UK’s most prestigious history book prize. The judges, all professional historians, pick out books that combine excellence in research with readability. Oxford University historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, one of the Wolfson judges and author of Black Spartacus , talks us through the six terrific books that made the 2023 shortlist, from the Black Death and its critical impact on economic development to the magic of our relationship with books. Read more history book recommendations on  Five Books

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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