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
Things Sweet to Taste
Much to my regret, I never truly knew the woman who helped raise me
By Leslie Stainton Monday, June 5, 2017
Goodbye to Westbrook Acres
As a writer walks and muses, the world’s sorrows intrude upon the peaceful streets he will be leaving
By Andrew Hudgins Monday, June 5, 2017
A Brief History of Secession
Why Calexit might not be as crazy as you think
By Richard Striner Monday, March 6, 2017
On Political Correctness
Power, class, and the new campus religion
By William Deresiewicz Monday, March 6, 2017
Interstates
How My Italian-American husband ate his way into the good graces of my African-American family
By Emily Bernard Monday, March 6, 2017
The Cloistered Books of Peru
A convent in the Andes is home to a treasure trove of rare, and possibly unique, early volumes
By Helen Hazen Monday, March 6, 2017
Keeping Faith
After a loss from which there is no recovery, I turned to books—not for solace or forgetting, but simply to survive
By Mark Lane Monday, March 6, 2017
The Ultimate Pawn Sacrifice
My brother’s life mirrored that of Bobby Fischer, the deeply troubled chess master
By Jay Neugeboren Monday, March 6, 2017
“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
