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 Age by 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 Union by 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 Parts by Helen King
Barbarity at the Bataclan
A chilling account of darkness in the City of Light
By Charles Trueheart Monday, December 2, 2024
V13: Chronicle of a Trial by Emmanuel Carrère, translated from the Frenchby John Lambert
Vital Signs
What happened when my husband became a paramedic
By Olivia Clare Friedman Monday, December 2, 2024
The Patron Subjects
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?
By Jean Strouse Thursday, November 14, 2024
Heart of Semi-Darkness
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors
By Tim Carman Thursday, November 7, 2024
Reborn in the City of Light
At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make art out of their lives
By Rosanna Warren Thursday, October 24, 2024
Thoreau’s Pencils
How might a newly discovered
connection to slavery change
our understanding of an abolitionist
hero and his writing?
By Augustine Sedgewick Thursday, October 17, 2024
