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
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 Monday, December 2, 2024
Granaries of Language
Dictionaries are far more than alphabetized collections of words
By Ilan Stavans Monday, December 2, 2024
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 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
Tales From an Attic
Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives
By Sierra Bellows Monday, March 4, 2024
The Widower’s Lament
After the death of the poet Wendy Barker, her grieving husband turns to the literature of loss
By Steven G. Kellman Monday, March 4, 2024
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
By Greg Afinogenov Thursday, January 11, 2024
It All Begins in Love
An essayist sees glimpses of her parents and the many struggles they endured in a new exhibition of southern photography
By Emily Bernard Friday, January 5, 2024
Florida Man
Making a home in the Sunshine State when you feel like a perpetual outsider
By Thomas Swick Thursday, December 28, 2023
Give Us Something to Look At
Why ornament matters in architecture
By Witold Rybczynski Thursday, December 21, 2023
Shooting a Dog
During a deployment in Iraq, a young soldier confronts a fundamental paradox about the masculine temperament in wartime
By Hugh Martin Thursday, December 14, 2023
In the Forest of the Colobus
At a Gambian nature reserve, troops of endangered monkeys—and numerous other creatures—enact a grand drama that plumbs the mysteries of life, death, and regeneration
By Dawn Starin Monday, December 4, 2023
Notes From the Front
Henry Kissinger’s Vietnam diary shows that he knew the war was lost a decade before it ended
By Thomas A. Bass Monday, December 4, 2023
Alphabet of Despair
The photographic language of Dorothea Lange conveyed order and beauty in a dusty, impoverished America
By Megan Craig Thursday, November 9, 2023
