Thine as Ever, P. T. Barnum
A scholar offers three utterly fictitious letters he wishes the famous showman had written
By A. H. Saxon Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Little Bowls of Colors
Writing in a foreign language can reveal secrets long buried in our mother tongue
By Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough Tuesday, September 6, 2016
The Taming of the Wild
As we celebrate the centenary of the National Park Service, a meditation on “the best idea that America ever had”
By David Gessner Monday, June 6, 2016
The FBI, My Husband, and Me
What I know now about Ted, whose photographs documented the 1960s, and about J. Edgar Hoover’s attempts to label him a Soviet spy
By Shirley Streshinsky Monday, June 6, 2016
The Truth About Dallas
Looking back at the investigation of the Kennedy assassination and the controversies that dogged it from the start
By Howard P. Willens and Richard M. Mosk Monday, June 6, 2016
The Other Woman
A mother’s devastating secret, and its many reverberations, present and past
By Sheila Kohler Monday, June 6, 2016
Flight Behavior
A restless traveler finds solace in the quiet beauty of the annual sandhill crane migration
By Amy Butcher Monday, June 6, 2016
Waiting for Fire
As smoke thickens and ash falls, an esteemed Napa vintner prepares to save his home and livelihood
By James Conaway Monday, June 6, 2016
Common Sense
It’s time for police officers to start demanding gun laws that could end up saving their own lives
By Robert Wilson Monday, February 29, 2016
Saving the Self in the Age of the Selfie
We must learn to humanize digital life as actively as we’ve digitized human life—here’s how
By James McWilliams Monday, February 29, 2016
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
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
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
In the Mushroom
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business
By Michael Autrey Monday, December 2, 2024
The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend
How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths
By Janna Malamud Smith Monday, December 2, 2024
Granaries of Language
Dictionaries are far more than alphabetized collections of words
By Ilan Stavans Monday, December 2, 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
