Cullen Murphy, "The Idea of Germany, From Tacitus to Hitler," NYT, 10 June, reviews Christopher B. Krebs's A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's "Germania" From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich.

Rachel Manteuffel, "Colonial in: The complicated history of Colonial Williamsburg," Washington Post, 9 June, features the challenge of historical re-enactment, including slavery, at Colonial Williamsburg.

A. S. Byatt reviews Jacqueline Yallops's Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World for the Guardian, 11 June.

Miranda Seymour, "Lessons From Jane Austen," NYT, 10 June, reviews William Deresiewicz's A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter and Rachel M. Brownstein's Why Jane Austen?

Lydia Davis, "Rimbaud's Wise Music," NYT, 9 June, reviews John Ashbery's translation of Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations.

Timothy Snyder, "Love and Death," TNR, 9 June, reviews Georg Adler, Peter Hudis, and Annelies Laschitza, eds., The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, trans. by George Shriver.

In a seven-part series, music critics at the Guardian and the Observer have created an interactive "A History of Modern Music". It focuses on popular music from 1951-2007. The critics invite your contributions at their blog.

Jacob Heilbrunn, "Did J.F.K. Lose Berlin?" NYT, 10 June, and Alex von Tunzelmann for the Washington Post, 10 June, review Frederick Kempe's Berlin, 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth.