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
Enough Already
What I’d really like to tell the bores in my life
By Mark Edmundson Monday, June 1, 2009
Words Apart
A writer in Quebec finds that language creates an unbridgeable divide
By Witold Rybczynski Monday, June 1, 2009
Any Way You Slice It
Sundays at the community oven aren’t just about the pizza
By Rob Gurwitt Monday, June 1, 2009
Saratoga Bill
He bet cautiously at the track, but elsewhere he was drawn to those with the odds stacked against them
By Zachary Sklar Monday, June 1, 2009
The Terminator Comes to Wall Street
How computer modeling worsened the financial crisis and what we ought to do about it
By Joseph Fuller Sunday, March 1, 2009
Purpose-Driven Life
Evolution does not rob life of meaning, but creates meaning. It also makes possible our own capacity for creativity.
By Brian Boyd Sunday, March 1, 2009
Second Chances, Social Forgiveness, and the Internet
We need the means, both technological and legal, to replace measures once woven into the fabric of communities
By Amitai Etzioni Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Potency of Breathless
At 50, Godard’s film still asks how something this bad can be so good
By Paula Marantz Cohen Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln
The hatter Boston Corbett was celebrated as a hero for killing John Wilkes Booth. Fame and fortune did not follow, but madness did.
By Ernest B. Furgurson Sunday, March 1, 2009
Visions and Revisions
Writing On Writing Well and keeping it up-to-date for 35 years
By William Zinsser Sunday, March 1, 2009
