Souls Hungering After Meaning
In Aegypt, John Crowley’s just-completed four-book masterwork, ordinary people bear a faint symbolic glow through real and mythological realms
By Michael Dirda Saturday, December 1, 2007
Sign Language
At their best, pictograms tell us clearly where to go and what to do; at their worst, things can get interesting
By Charles Trueheart Saturday, December 1, 2007
Letter from Cambodia: At Last, a Tribunal for Khmer Rouge Atrocities
By Dustin Roasa Saturday, September 1, 2007
Good Thing Going
Stephen Sondheim only looks better with time
By Wendy Smith Saturday, September 1, 2007
Wonder Bread
Come with us to a place called Brooklyn, where the stories are half-baked and their endings bland and soft
By Melvin Jules Bukiet Saturday, September 1, 2007
The Genius and Her Sanctuary
Pivotal moments in the pairing of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
By Catharine R. Stimpson Saturday, September 1, 2007
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice By Janet Malcolm
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
By Sierra Bellows Monday, December 2, 2024
Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Partsby Helen King
