Steve Brodner on the candidates and the financial crisis.

Steve Brodner on Sarah Palin and the politics of perception.

Steve Brodner wonders how voters see Obama and Biden.

It’s been a rough few months for Republicans on Staten Island. In May, Vito J. Fossella, a five-term Republican congressman, announced that he would not seek reëlection, after a drunk-driving arrest unearthed evidence that he had a secret family. The Party, struggling to find a replacement for Fossella . . .

A portfolio of art work by Georges Seurat.

Phototgraphs of sculpture by Martin Puryear.

A selection of art work by Frida Kahlo, as well as photographs of Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera.

In this issue, Anthony Grafton writes about the libraries of the past, and what they tell us about the books of the future. Here Grafton points to some favorite archives and historical resources.

Many roads lead to the real–and utopian–digital collections that are taking shape across the Web . . .

A portfolio of images of a cacao plantation in Bahia, Brazil, taken by Jason Florio.

This week, Paul Theroux’s short story “ Mr. Bones ” appears in the magazine. Here, with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, he talks about his father, fiction, and reality.

DEBORAH TREISMAN: “Mr. Bones” is based on a real incident from the life of your father, who did participate in a . . .