Rage, Muse
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten
By Wendy Smith Thursday, August 1, 2024
Martha Foley’s Granddaughters
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett
By Jay Neugeboren Thursday, July 18, 2024
To Catch a Sunset
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
By Sandra Beasley Thursday, July 11, 2024
The Next New Thing
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before
By Witold Rybczynski Thursday, July 4, 2024
Imperfecta
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing
By Pamela Haag Thursday, June 20, 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
The World at the End of a Line
The grandson of one of American literature’s Lost Generation novelists reflects on his namesake’s love of the sea
By John Dos Passos Coggin Thursday, April 13, 2023
The Goddess Complex
A set of revered stone deities was stolen from a temple in northwestern India; their story can tell us much about our current reckoning with antiquities trafficking
By Elizabeth Kadetsky Thursday, March 2, 2023
Last Rites and Comic Flights
A funeral in a 1984 Japanese film offers moments of slapstick amid the solemnity
By Pico Iyer Thursday, July 28, 2022
The Believer
When nobody would touch Joyce’s manuscript, Sylvia Beach stepped in
By Keri Walsh Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Interview with a Neandertal
What I always wanted to ask our distant cousins about love and death and sorrow and dinner
By Priscilla Long Wednesday, March 2, 2011
‘I Tried to Stop the Bloody Thing’
In World War I, nearly as many British men refused the draft—20,000—as were killed on the Somme’s first day. Why were those who fought for peace forgotten?
By Adam Hochschild Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The View from 90
Even when those in my generation have reached a state of serenity, wisdom, and relative comfort, what we face can hardly be called the golden years
By Doris Grumbach Wednesday, March 2, 2011
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
