“You Cannot Refine It”

From victory to annihilation, the evolving nature of combat

Sherman’s Ghosts: Soldiers, Civilians, and the American Way of War By Matthew Carr

Riveting

In Search of Mister Gustave

Who is the inspiration for the Grand Budapest’s concierge?

Confessing and Confiding

Knowing the difference between the two can elevate an essay from therapy to art

Of Two Minds

Gut Reaction

Study implicates bacteria in maternal stress and infant illnesses

Remembrances

River Song

Autism and Genetics

Failure to Heal

Today’s medical industry thrives on diagnosing and curing, but it doesn’t reach the soul

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Unionby Richard Carwardine

“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

Casa Gorín

“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Island Royalty

A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary

The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christopheby Marlene L. Daut

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

Birthday Boy

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