Kill the Creature
In search of snakes—and the balm of charity and love in a world of infinitely lonely space
By Christian Wiman Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Great Escape
On Normandy’s coast a century ago, Claude Debussy fled the war and composed his final piano masterpiece
By Sudip Bose Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Two Dutch Visionaries
How the optical revolution revealed worlds large and small
By Graeme Wood Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing By Laura J. Snyder
“You Cannot Refine It”
From victory to annihilation, the evolving nature of combat
By John Nagl Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Sherman’s Ghosts: Soldiers, Civilians, and the American Way of War By Matthew Carr
In Search of Mister Gustave
Who is the inspiration for the Grand Budapest’s concierge?
By Elena S. Danielson Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Confessing and Confiding
Knowing the difference between the two can elevate an essay from therapy to art
By Emily Fox Gordon Wednesday, March 4, 2015
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 Christopheby 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
Verde
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew
By Jesse Lee Kercheval Thursday, December 12, 2024
Aging Out
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night
By Anne Matthews Thursday, December 5, 2024
Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Ageby James Chappel
Under a Spell Everlasting
Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war
By Samantha Rose Hill Monday, December 2, 2024
Divided Providence
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War
By Robert Wilson Monday, December 2, 2024
Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Unionby Richard Carwardine
The Fair Fields 
Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil
By Rosanna Warren Monday, December 2, 2024
