A Writer by Nature

An excerpt from World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

“Burnt Norton” by T. S. Eliot

London: A Testament to Survival

England is a lesson on the longevity of our planet, the tenacity of our species, and our need, as human beings, to connect.

Who’s the Nerd Now?

How geek culture finally triumphed

Bird Dancer

You Can’t Go Home Again

American volunteers joined western allies in the fight to dismantle the Islamic State in Syria. What happened when they came back?

Admired and Abhorred

The German composer whose legacy continues to confound

Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music Alex Ross

A Mind on Fire

In his acclaimed trilogy of intellectual biographies, Robert D. Richardson sought to help us overcome the burden of the past

Beneath the Powdered Wig

Reinterpreting the life of our trendiest Founding Father

Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons From a Misunderstood Founder by Christian Parenti

Varieties of Experience

Culture rewires our brains and shapes how we think

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich by Joseph Henrich

Family/History

David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story

In the Lions’ Studio

A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equationby Kenneth Turan

Such People

“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Kyung Kim

Far over the misty mountains

The Fair Fields

Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

Just Yesterday

“The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday

Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apartby Nicholas Carr

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