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The British intervened three times in Afghanistan in the 80 years up to 1919. It was the western frontier of their empire, the gateway to their most precious possession, India. They wanted to keep the Russians out. The new exhibition at the National Army Museum in London has relevance today.

Roth, who has been writing novels for more than a half-century, explains how he comes up with his ideas — and why he continues to write every day. In his latest work, Nemesis, he imagines a fictional polio outbreak set in his hometown of Newark, N.J., during the 1940s.

Novelist Nicole Krauss explains how not knowing is an integral part of her writing process. She says her doubt-ridden characters in Great House are reflections of her own approach to fiction; she doesn't know what's going to happen — until it does.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has witnessed seminal events in U.S. history, from growing up in segregated Alabama to helping plan the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her new memoir describes how her parents helped her reach the White House.

The AK-47 was created by the Soviets after World War II and changed the way war is fought. Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent C.J. Chivers explains how the gun became the weapon of choice for insurgents, terrorists and child soldiers.

Novelist Nicole Krauss artfully weaves disparate stories of love and loss into a devastating examination of the weight of memory on those left behind. Four narrators are connected by an antique desk separated from its original owner during the Holocaust.

For nearly 700 years, Billingsgate fish market has stood on the banks of the Thames, and many of its traditions remain. One of those traditions is enshrined in the work of the porters who deliver the fish. City officials wants to scrap a Victorian-era law, under which the porters are licensed, opening their jobs to all-comers. The porters, who are all union members, are furious, and have launched a campaign to save their jobs.

Australian opera star Joan Sutherland, who for more than four decades of singing was known as "La Stupenda" for the power of her coloratura singing, has died at age 83.

Abraham Lincoln always thought slavery was unjust — but struggled with what to do once slavery ended. Historian Eric Foner traces how Lincoln's thoughts about slavery — and freed slaves — mirrored America's own transformation in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

The hero of this year's Booker Prize winner, The Finkler Question, is a non-Jew fascinated by Jewishness. For writer David Sax, these efforts to simulate Judaism — to take on a persona outside of one's own — offer a broader commentary on human experience.