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
“We’ll Do Everything We Can”
Sometimes, to save a patient, doctors must move beyond textbooks and embrace the ineffable
By Patrick Tripp Monday, December 4, 2017
Opioids and Paternalism
To help end the crisis, both doctors and patients need to find a new way to think about pain
By David Brown Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Still Wilderness
What are we feeling when we are feeling joy? And where inside us does that feeling reside?
By Christian Wiman Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Against Solidarity
As a writer, with a writer’s chronic need for detachment, I have avoided the ideology of gender
By Emily Fox Gordon Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Urban Wild
In slowly gentrifying Detroit, you might see a fox, or even a coyote, but where have all the stray dogs gone?
By Laura Bernstein-Machlay Tuesday, September 5, 2017
A Jane Austen Kind of Guy
I get it that women find my affinity for their writer intrusive, but her world has much to offer men, too
By William Deresiewicz Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Our Nuclear Future
We may think the bomb is back, but it never really went away
By Jeffrey Lewis Monday, June 5, 2017
Dishonorable Behavior
The scourge of military sexual assault and the warrior’s masculine code
By Elizabeth D. Samet Monday, June 5, 2017
Reading Thoreau at 200
Why is the seminal work of the great American transcendentalist held in such scorn today?
By William Howarth Monday, June 5, 2017
My Mongolian Spot
An ephemeral birthmark is a rare gift, connecting me to generations spanning the centuries
By Jennifer Hope Choi Monday, June 5, 2017
