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

O Canada

A celebration of our cousins to the north

Clash on Neutral Ground

Sharing the roads with an alien culture

Modified People

We can engineer human traits, but should we?

Antipodal Star

Knut Hamsun’s Pan

A throbbing world of sensation and heartbreak

Where the Blue Begins

The joy of falling into books

Man on a Pedestal

What to do about this symbol of the Confederacy?

Extinction by Unnatural Selection

Humans must decide which species will live on and which ones won’t

The Trip Begins

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