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
Baseball’s Loss of Innocence
When the 1919 Black Sox scandal shattered Ring Lardner’s reverence for the game, the great sportswriter took a permanent walk
By Diana Goetsch Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Unauthorized, But Not Untrue
The real story of a biographer in a celebrity culture of public denials, media timidity, and legal threats
By Kitty Kelley Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Empathy and Other Mysteries
Neuroscientists are discovering things about the brain that answer questions philosophers have been asking for centuries
By Richard Restak Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Seduction
After years of favoring the endurance-test approach to teaching literature, a professor focuses on how to make books spark to life for her students
By Paula Marantz Cohen Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Passionate Encounter
A noted midcentury critic has much to say in his journal about his fellow writers and the literary world they shared
By Alfred Kazin Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Reassessing Rossellini
Restoration of Rome Open city, the director’s masterpiece, prompts a look at why he later retreated from the neorealism it introduced
By Joseph Luzzi Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Prozac for the Planet
Can geoengineering make the climate happy?
By Christopher Cokinos Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Every Last One
A guy with a weakness for demography goes door to door for the census and discovers what a democracy is made of
By Brad Edmondson Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wonderlust
“Deep Travel” opens our minds to the rich possibilities of ordinary experience
By Tony Hiss Wednesday, September 1, 2010
