The Given Child
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To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village?

Red Tide Warning

Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and neighbors who don’t always believe what they see

Tramping With Virginia

A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today

The Redoubtable Bull Shark

Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators

My Name Is Emily

What we call ourselves—and what
others call us—can be both a burden and a gift

Strength and Conditioning

Whether teaching history in the segregated South or winning Super Bowls as an NFL coach, Johnny Parker has encouraged his charges to strive for a certain kind of greatness

The Dragon Amid the Tigers

Ever since a weeks-long war in 1962, the influence of Chinese culture on the lives of many Indians hasn’t always been so evident

Tales From an Attic

Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives

The Widower’s Lament
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After the death of the poet Wendy Barker, her grieving husband turns to the literature of loss

An Outrage Sacred to the Gods

As Antigone knows all too well, the act of burying a loved one is not always a simple matter

Asteroid Hunters

The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space rocks

Tiger Mom

At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s restless mind

American Carthage
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Echoes from the ancient conflicts between Hannibal’s city and Rome continue to reverberate well into the present

Lessons From Harlem
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A white blues player’s streetside education

Maximalisma
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A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her

Raspberry Heaven
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A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine

In the Matter of the Commas
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For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision, logic, individuality, and music

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

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

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