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A little-known poem has been retrieved from the Oxford University archives, which appears to reveal a 17th century attempt to besmirch the reputation of John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost. The poem is a bawdy ditty laden with sexual innuendo, and is labeled "by Milton." However, since Milton is best-known as a great religious and political polemicist, it hardly fits with the rest of his work -- and some academics believe the poem was actually the work of a jealous political rival.

A house located on C Street in Washington, D.C., is home to many powerful conservative members of Congress who share both an ideology and an address. Jeff Sharlet details the house's mission in C Street:The Fundamental Threat to American Democracy.

Nuclear and biological weapons are covered under arms control pacts. But no such agreement exists for cyberweapons. The reason, experts say, is that some countries see "cyber disarmament" as a way to quash pro-democracy activists.

A quiet and reclusive elderly lady died in the British coastal town of Torquay the other day. She had no known relatives and no friends, so local authorities entered her home. They found papers and medals that revealed that she was far from the typical pensioner. Eileen Nearne -- aka Agent Rose, one of only a few dozen female spies dispatched by Britain into occupied France in World War II to work with the French Resistance.

Writer Lev Grossman was raised on a strict diet of literary classics — until he discovered T.H. White's masterful retelling of the King Arthur tale. In The Once and Future King, what was once as stiff and two-dimensional as a medieval tapestry becomes rich and real and devastatingly sad.

For some, travel is a relaxing break, but not for writer Benjamin Percy. For our books series "My Guilty Pleasure," where authors talk about a book they are embarrassed to love, Percy discusses how he spends his vacations — armed with a travel guide, seeking out the spooky, the scary and the supernatural.

Rebecca Traister's incisive analysis of misogyny and gender roles in the 2008 election takes on Tina Fey's satire, "Iron My Shirt" T-shirts and Hillary Clinton's "Night of the Imaginary Tears."

Writer David Rakoff's glass is never half full. In Half Empty, his latest essay collection, Rakoff explains the powers of pessimistic thought as he analyzes topics such as a pornography trade fair, his neurotic childhood and his recent cancer diagnosis.

In her new book, Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties, Lesley M.M. Blume creates a world in which trolls use bones for money and dwarfs dig rubies out of the Lincoln Tunnel.

Rakoff doesn't often look on the bright side, and in his latest collection of essays, he explains why you shouldn't either. Thoroughly depressing subjects addressed in Half Empty include cancer, AIDS and Sept. 11.