Travels in Literary Time
A writer’s excursions beyond mere archives
By Jay Parini Monday, March 6, 2017
This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer Richard Holmes
The Gogol Notebook
Remembering Randall Jarrell’s passionate lectures on Russian literature and discovering the pangs of alienation that plagued the poet during his final years
By Angela Davis-Gardner Monday, December 5, 2016
“We Must Not Be Enemies”
Progressives who wish for a less reactionary America could begin by trying to understand the Trump voter
By Amitai Etzioni Monday, December 5, 2016
Milton Friedman’s Misadventures in China
The stubborn advocate of free markets tangles with the ideologues of a state-run economy
By Julian B. Gewirtz Monday, December 5, 2016
Selective Memory
Ideas do not always catch on right away
By Christoph Irmscher Monday, December 5, 2016
The Book That Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation By Randall Fuller
The Life Unlived
On W. G. Sebald and the uncertainties of time
By André Aciman Monday, December 5, 2016
Good Neighbors
When beavers came between us and a farmer down the road, we knew something more was at stake
By Tamara Dean Monday, December 5, 2016
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
