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 Apart by Nicholas Carr

Burned

“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Paige Ledom

Out of the ordinary

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 Union by 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

A Lifetime in Verse

An excerpt from Land’s End: New and Selected Poems by Gail Mazur

Land’s End: New and Selected Poemsby Gail Mazur

Landfall

La Havilland

The movie star became a fixture in Paris, where she lived for half her lifetime

Creeping Illiberalism

A bleak account of the West’s slide toward tyranny

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianismby Anne Applebaum

“Never Was History So Interesting”

Reading, Writing, and Confinement in 1900

The Oldest Living Music in the World

One man’s quest to uncover the mysteries of Europe’s most enduring folk songs

Beyond Classification

One writer’s journey into the labyrinth of political and bureaucratic obfuscation

Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Actby Nicholson Baker

Robot Therapy

Artificial intelligence helps keep nursing home residents engaged

Dirty Work

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