Keepers of the Old Ways
Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, January 17, 2025
“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers
Poems read aloud, beautifully
By Amanda Holmes Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Island Royalty
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
By Madison Smartt Bell Monday, January 13, 2025
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by 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
By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025
The Weight of a Stone
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology
By Megan Craig Thursday, January 2, 2025
Indefensible Torture, Unfree Speech
What Censorship Kept America from Learning about the Futility of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”
By Lincoln Caplan Saturday, November 7, 2020
The Black Banners Declassified: How Torture Derailed the War on Terror after 9/11 by Ali Soufan with Daniel Freedman
Berlin Bops
How East German punks tore down the wall that divided them
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, November 6, 2020
Filling in the Blanks
An excerpt from How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption About Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong by Douglas B. Downey
By Jayne Ross Thursday, November 5, 2020
How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption About Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong by Douglas B. Downey
“Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy
Poems read aloud, beautifully
By Amanda Holmes Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Morbid and Misunderstood
The science and history of books bound in human skin
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, October 30, 2020
Art After the Plague
How painters through the ages have responded to contagion, pestilence, and deadly epidemics