Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

This week on nybooks.com: The Review’s May 22 issue features Robert Darnton on libraries and the public interest, Masha Gessen on Sergei Dovlatov, and Jerome Groopman on amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and the brain. On the blogs, Katherine Rundell visits the dark world of Randall Jarrell’s children’s books, Anatol Lieven argues that federalization is the only path to peace in Ukraine, Elizabeth Drew tells the real story of how Lyndon Johnson got the Civil Rights Act passed, and Ian Buruma considers the artistry of director Kenji Mizoguchi. THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY OTHER PRESS

The New World Digital Library Robert Darnton In the scramble to gain market share in cyberspace, something is getting lost: the public interest. Libraries and laboratories are buckling under economic pressure, and the information they diffuse is being diverted away from the public sphere, where it can do most good.   ADVERTISEMENT   The Songs of Sergei Dovlatov Masha Gessen Dovlatov is to Russian vernacular whatCasablanca and Mark Twain are to American speech: many unattributed and unidentified literary allusions and quotes come from his work, while he is often credited with aphorisms he never uttered.   How Memory Speaks Jerome Groopman Physicians often fantasize about which diseases they may develop. In middle age, the shadow of a heart attack colored my thoughts. Now, into my sixties, it is impossible not to wonder whether my life ultimately will be marked by a malady where memory struggles to speak.   More: Tim Judah reports from eastern Ukraine, John Cassidy reviews Elizabeth Warren’s memoir   ADVERTISEMENT   Strange and Wistful: Randall Jarrell’s Children’s Books Katherine Rundell “One of the most obvious facts about grownups, to a child,” Jarrell once wrote, “is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.” The Animal Family is proof that he had not forgotten.   Ukraine: The Only Way to Peace Anatol Lieven As the first heavy fighting begins in eastern Ukraine, there is a growing sense that a larger confrontation between Russia and the West is unavoidable. This is a terrible mistake.   The Limits of Lyndon Johnson Elizabeth Drew The Broadway play All the Way presents Johnson browbeating Congress, through willpower, guile, wit, and near-bribery, into passing the Civil Rights Act. But this isn’t what happened.   The Beauty in Her Sacrifice Ian Buruma To Jean-Luc Godard, Kenji Mizoguchi was a pure artist, whose long meticulous takes raised film to a heightened form of dramatic realism.   Events: ‘Othello’, Plimpton on film, Anthony Grafton, Daniel Mendelsohn, and more.