COMING SOON: Spring 2026

Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver
By Peter E. Gordon
Publication Date: February 24, 2026

An accessible and authoritative biography of Walter Benjamin that guides the reader through the complexity of his intellectual legacy and the turbulence of his time
 
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism—his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving—that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization.
 
Award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile, through the romanticism of the youth movements and the conflicts over modernism and Marxism, Gordon compellingly brings Benjamin to life.

Peter E. Gordon teaches social theory and philosophy at Harvard University. His books include Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization and A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul
By Jenna Weissman Joselit
Publication Date: March 17, 2026

An engaging biography that goes behind the myths to reveal the complex life of a transformative figure in modern American Judaism
 
Rabbi, writer, teacher, and thinker, Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983) was one of the leading Jewish personalities of twentieth-century America. Founder of the Reconstructionist movement, he was a maverick who reshaped religious faith and practice, generating controversy at every turn. Known for his relentless energy and imagination, Kaplan redefined Jewish identity, emphasizing reason over superstition, and intellectual discovery over passive inheritance. He introduced new rituals, reevaluated the role of tradition, and advocated for a Judaism that evolved with the times and fostered inclusive community. Drawn extensively from Kaplan’s private diaries and correspondence with family and close friends, Jenna Weissman Joselit’s intimate portrait of this influential and iconoclastic thinker sheds new light on the meaning of American Judaism, identity, the limits of belonging, and the role of faith in modern society.

Jenna Weissman Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and professor of history at the George Washington University. The author, most recently, of Set in Stone: America’s Embrace of the Ten Commandments, she lives in New York.

Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy
By Daniel Okrent
Pubication Date: March 17, 2026

A revelatory look at the complex inner world of one of the twentieth century’s most beloved theatrical composers
 
Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021) was a towering figure in American musical theater. Celebrated for his iconic Broadway shows such as Company, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods, his accolades include eight Tony Awards, multiple Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. In this intimate biography, Daniel Okrent follows Sondheim through the tumult of his upbringing and his parents’ divorce, his acquaintance with Oscar Hammerstein II and subsequent discovery of musical theater, and his rise to fame as both a lyricist and composer.
 
Okrent shines new light on Sondheim’s tormented emotional life, wavering self-confidence, and alcoholism, drawing on the artist’s intimate correspondence with such notable figures as Hal Prince, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents; exclusive interviews with his close friends and collaborators, including James Lapine and John Weidman; and Sondheim’s own oral history, which remained closed until his death. As Okrent explores the ways Sondheim’s music and lyrics express the inner man, he reveals a life that was defined by two parallel arcs: the movement from alienation to connection, and from ambivalence to resolution.

Daniel Okrent had careers as a book and magazine editor and was the first public editor of the New York Times. He is the prize-winning author of six books, including The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America, and Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. He lives in New York City and on Cape Cod.

Edmond de Rothschild: Finding Zion
By James McAuley
Publication Date: May 19, 2026

An absorbing portrait of Edmond de Rothschild, who defied his class to help build a nation—and found his identity in the process
 
Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934) was born into one of the wealthiest families in history, but his legacy lies beyond banking, art, and aristocratic privilege. In this compelling biography, award-winning historian and journalist James McAuley tells the story of a man who defied his elite world to support a radical cause: the creation of a Jewish homeland.
 
Drawing on rare access to archives—including Rothschild’s own long-lost memoir—McAuley reveals how and why this reserved French aesthete became a driving force in the early Zionist settlement of Palestine. Rothschild’s journey from the salons of Paris to the fields of Eretz Israel is a tale of emotional awakening, political conviction, and personal transformation—of a man’s search for a cause and discovery of himself.

James McAuley is the author of The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Collectors and the Fall of France, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in history. He is a former Paris correspondent for the Washington Post, as well as a contributor to the New York Review of Books and other publications. He lives in London, UK.

Sneak Peek: 2026 + Beyond*

Gertrude Stein by Lauren Elkin
Oppenheimer by David Reiff
Hannah Arendt by M. Gessen
Rebecca by Judith Shulevitz
Bob Dylan by Sasha Frere-Jones
Susan Sontag by Benjamin Taylor
Louis Kahn by Gini Alhadeff
Mahler by Leon Botstein
Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jeffrey Rosen
La Guardia by Brenda Wineapple
Jonas Salk by David Margolick
Ba’al Shem Tov by Ariel Mayse
…and many more.

*A sample of titles in production. Publication dates TBD.