Empathy and Other Mysteries
Neuroscientists are discovering things about the brain that answer questions philosophers have been asking for centuries
By Richard Restak Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Word Made Flesh
What writers do and what boxers do is more alike than you might imagine
By Colum McCann Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Seduction
After years of favoring the endurance-test approach to teaching literature, a professor focuses on how to make books spark to life for her students
By Paula Marantz Cohen Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Passionate Encounter
A noted midcentury critic has much to say in his journal about his fellow writers and the literary world they shared
By Alfred Kazin Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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
Ideology as Anatomy
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives