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

Letters and Comments on My Writing

A selection

Milestones

Does New Orleans have anniversary fatigue?

So More Can Live

With a little money and basic care, more mothers and babies could survive.

“In my end is my beginning”

A Note on Stationery

And suddenly the memories revealed themselves

Shell-shocked

New Orleans serves history on the half shell

Thanks for the Gratitude

But what’s the upside for the curmudgeon?

Like Dancing Down the Aisle

Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters

A well-told story always feels true

A Tinkering Kind of Guy

The absence of arrogance

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