Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: Protecting journalistic sources in an age of terrorism fears, Libya’s civil war, a Chinese scholar’s view of American politics, and the question of authenticity in fiction.

The Reporter Resists His Government Steve Coll The tangled case of New York Timesinvestigative reporter James Risen has led to one of the most consequential confrontations between the government and the press in a generation.   ADVERTISEMENT   Libya Against Itself Nicolas Pelham Libyans feel even more isolated than when the UN imposed sanctions on Qaddafi. The civil society that briefly emerged after the colonel’s downfall has all but disappeared. Each activist can reel off the names of colleagues shot dead or kidnapped, often by Islamists.   How to Be a Chinese Democrat: An Interview with Liu Yu Ian Johnson Liu Yu is one of China’s best-known America-watchers. A professor of political science at Tsinghua University, she lived in the US from 2000 to 2007 and now researches democratization in developing countries.   ADVERTISEMENT   In Search of Authenticity Tim Parks “Are these real concerns? Is this work convincing?” Behind all the other questions one asks oneself about a novel, these are perhaps the most determining—and the most slippery.   FILM The series “Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968–1986” mixes social documentaries and dramatic features (Lincoln Center)   TELEVISION The 1,100 pages of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall get squeezed into just six hours of TV, starring Mark Rylance (BBC, coming to PBS in April)   DISCUSSION Edward Mendelson talks about his new book, Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers (92nd Street Y)   MUSIC The Copenhagen-based vocal group Theatre of Voicesperforms Karlheinz Stockhausen’s meditativeStimmung (Carnegie Hall)