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

Casa Gorín

The Kid Brother

Consider yourself lucky if you have one

To Go Left, Turn Right

If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right

The Embattled First Amendment

The Supreme Court is interpreting free speech in new ways that threaten our democracy

Above and Beyond

Doomed to Re-Tweet It

Hearts With One Purpose

A revealing group portrait of Ireland’s motley crew of rebels

Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890–1923 By R. F. Foster

A Terrible Loss

Lincoln’s assassination 150 years ago turned plans for postwar reconciliation to a frenzy of violence

A Taste for Higher Math

The numbers that count

How to Bake π: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics By Eugenia Cheng

Whither American Culture?

Kill the Creature

In search of snakes—and the balm of charity and love in a world of infinitely lonely space

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