Island Royalty

A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary

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

Birthday Boy

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Amy Wetsch

Life, magnified

The Weight of a Stone

Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology

New Year, Old Year

“The Horses” by Edwin Muir

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Snow Maiden

Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice

Ho Ho Horror

Why not make this Christmas a little darker?

Why Has American Classical Music Ignored Its Black Past?

And the immigrant composer who predicted a different future

Black-and-white photo of composer William Levi Dawson

New World Prophecy

Dvořák once predicted that American classical music would be rooted in the black vernacular. Why, then, has the field remained so white?

Existential Split

On feeling the pull of home

Trees

It’s Not Easy Being Green

In an era of global warming, not all tree-related questions are equal.

Madeline A. Stratton

Without a Shadow of a Doubt

“Any Case” by Wislawa Szymborska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Bland Act

Fashion Kills

How our hunger for more clothes is killing the environment and exploiting workers

Iceland

From the Office to Iceland

An Excerpt from Wild Horses of the Summer Sun

Wild Horses of the Summer Sunby Tory Bilski

Girl sitting at window reading

Uncommon Podcasts

Three outlets for the radically curious

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