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Robert Siegel says President Barack Obama's speech was one crafted for hard times. Melissa Block says people in the crowd seemed very interested in listening to what Obama had to say, and they thought the tone of his speech was appropriate.

U.S. Secretary of State Rice meets with visiting Israeli and Palestinian officials in a bid to revive flagging hopes of a peace settlement. With Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying he will resign in September, a deal this year looks unlikely.

Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will meet in a town hall-style meeting in Nashville, Tenn. Topics are supposed to be divided between the economy and foreign policy, but given the financial crisis more questions are expected to focus on the topic.

A federal judge in Washington has ordered the Bush administration to release five detainees from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The men have been held there for seven years on evidence the judge finds insufficient. The ruling is the first by a trial judge since the Supreme Court declared in June that the Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts.

President Obama is apparently on the cusp of nominating Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, as secretary of commerce. We explore why he made this unusual move.

Minnesota's Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken is still unresolved. A three-judge panel is trying to determine the winner of last November's election.

Sofia Samatar is the creator of an award-winning fantasy world; she sticks closer to earth in her powerful first story collection, but it's not always the earth we might recognize.

A new volume of Robert Frost's collected, unexpurgated letters reveals that the poet thought a great deal about how people read him — and was hurt when his modernist friends didn't approve of his raw, sincere style. Reviewer J.P. O'Malley says the collection gives readers greater insight into Frost the poet and Frost the man.

Aleksandar Hemon's darkly hilarious new novel follows a sad-sack Chicago teacher whose screenwriting dreams lead to catastrophe. Critic Michael Schaub calls it "crazy in the best sense of the word."

Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda remembers finding a worn copy of the anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural in the library as a young boy. He found the stories revelatory. Is there a scary story that made an impression on you when you were his age? Tell us in the comments.