Rage, Muse
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten
By Wendy Smith Thursday, August 1, 2024
Martha Foley’s Granddaughters
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett
By Jay Neugeboren Thursday, July 18, 2024
To Catch a Sunset
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
By Sandra Beasley Thursday, July 11, 2024
The Next New Thing
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before
By Witold Rybczynski Thursday, July 4, 2024
Imperfecta
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing
By Pamela Haag Thursday, June 20, 2024
The Widower’s Lament
After the death of the poet Wendy Barker, her grieving husband turns to the literature of loss
By Steven G. Kellman Monday, March 4, 2024
The World at the End of a Line
The grandson of one of American literature’s Lost Generation novelists reflects on his namesake’s love of the sea
By John Dos Passos Coggin Thursday, April 13, 2023
The Goddess Complex
A set of revered stone deities was stolen from a temple in northwestern India; their story can tell us much about our current reckoning with antiquities trafficking
By Elizabeth Kadetsky Thursday, March 2, 2023
Last Rites and Comic Flights
A funeral in a 1984 Japanese film offers moments of slapstick amid the solemnity
By Pico Iyer Thursday, July 28, 2022
The Believer
When nobody would touch Joyce’s manuscript, Sylvia Beach stepped in
By Keri Walsh Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Strange Matter
The physics and poetics of the search for the God particle
By John Olson Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Wrestling with Two Behemoths
A longtime New Yorker, and New Yorker writer, gets the cold shoulder from powerful New York cultural institutions
By Ved Mehta Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Doctor Is IN
At 88, Aaron Beck is now revered for an approach to psychotherapy that pushed Freudian analysis aside
By Daniel B. Smith Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A Mindful Beauty
What poetry and applied mathematics have in common
By Joel E. Cohen Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Armchair Travelers
The Renaissance writers and humanists Petrarch and Boccaccio turned to geography to understand the works of antiquity
By Toby Lester Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Mother Country
A daughter examines a life played out in romantic defiance of bad fortune
By Evelyn Toynton Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Not Ready for Mt. Rushmore
Reconciling the myth of Ronald Reagan with the reality
By Matthew Dallek Monday, June 1, 2009
Shock Waves
A blast in Baghdad tests the endurance of a soldier and his family