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
A Burning World
Can poetry truly supply the language to express the ineffable sensations of suffering and love?
By Christian Wiman Thursday, October 26, 2023
Origin Stories
What we know of Flannery O’Connor’s childhood—and how her views on race took shape—is incomplete if her caretaker Emma Jackson remains in obscurity
By Caroline McCoy Friday, September 22, 2023
A Turn to the Dark Side
Reckoning with 9/11, the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic has compelled
historians to rethink the Civil War and its aftermath
By Drew Gilpin Faust Monday, September 11, 2023
Shostakovich in South Dakota
A manifesto for the future of American classical music
By Joseph Horowitz Thursday, September 7, 2023
The Grinberg Affair
One of Mexico’s most curious missing-persons cases involves a scientist who dabbled in the mystical arts
By Ilan Stavans Tuesday, September 5, 2023
The Color of Dust
Sometimes even a team of radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons can be mystified by the strange workings of the human brain
By Patrick Tripp Thursday, August 10, 2023
The Lives of Bryan
My brother often eluded death, but the many trials that he endured could not prepare us for that awful moment when he finally left us
By Jennifer Sinor Thursday, August 3, 2023
Projections of Life
Memories of a Midwestern childhood and the stories only pictures can tell
By David Owen Thursday, July 6, 2023
The Whole World in His Hands
What a digital restoration of the most expensive painting ever sold tells us about beauty, authenticity, and the fragility of existence
By David Stromberg Thursday, June 15, 2023
