The Word Made Flesh

Colum McCann

What writers do and what boxers do is more alike than you might imagine

Going Home, Going Away

Paul Theroux

At a 50th high school reunion, a well-known traveler recalls his pride in the hometown he was so eager to leave behind

Spaced Out in the City

Edward Hoagland

Giving Absurdity Its Due

Robert Zaretsky

In the Panthéon, Albert Camus joins a kindred soul

Go-o-o-o, Lemmings!

Brian Doyle

Stomp those Stormy Petrels!

Brush Up Your Berlin

David Lehman

And beware of kiss-me-I’m-poetical junk

Sesquicentennial Excess

Christopher Clausen

Must we erase evidence of later commemorations at Civil War sites?

Who Was Hall?

Jeremy Bernstein

And just what was his connection to hedgehogs?

'HD 11964 d' by Any Other Name

Christopher Cokinos

What to call the planets we find beyond our solar system?

The Most Important Election in History

Christopher Clausen

Is it possible to elect a president without invoking that phrase?

A Most Interesting Young Man

Brian Doyle

Was that Bob Dylan my sister met on a weir above Woodstock?

Exit No Exit

David Lehman

Whatever happened to existentialism?

Sign Language

Charles Trueheart

At their best, pictograms tell us clearly where to go and what to do; at their worst, things can get interesting

Inshallah

Cullen Murphy

The war in Iraq might leave us a new word to match a new sense of our own limitations