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
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
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
My Holocaust Problem
If we cannot speak of it—though speak of it we must—how do we remember what happened to the Jews of Europe?
By Arthur Krystal Thursday, December 1, 2005
Palladio in the Rough
A South Carolinian builds classical revival houses that really look old
By Witold Rybczynski Thursday, December 1, 2005
Fadeaway Jumper
A Sunday-afternoon player of a certain age says his farewell to basketball
By Mark Edmundson Thursday, December 1, 2005
Flat Time
The ebb and flow of life in a Newfoundland fishing village
By Robert Finch Thursday, December 1, 2005
Buster Brown’s America
How a Jew from Slovakia became a Catholic from Manhattan, then fell from grace and turned into a real American
By Jiri Wyatt Thursday, December 1, 2005
A Visit to Esperantoland
The natives want you to learn their invented language as a step toward world harmony. Who are these people?
By Arika Okrent Thursday, December 1, 2005
The Lieutenant
Inept in the art of warfare, this volunteer soldier succeeded on a different field
By Brian Doyle Thursday, December 1, 2005
Tea and Fantasy
Fact, fiction, and revolution in an American town
By Adam Goodheart Thursday, September 1, 2005
Education Is My Mother and My Father
How the Lost Boys of Sudan found their way
By David Chanoff Thursday, September 1, 2005
