Pictures

Reflecting on gun violence from the Happiest Place on Earth

Bitter Fruits

Decades after leaving the Eastern Bloc, an author recalls the American dream

The Year That Spring Did Not Come

Looking back on the turmoil of 1968

Watcher of the Skies

A tribute to Stephen Hawking

That Common Heart

Finding unity and faith in the fiction of Marilynne Robinson

On Gratitude

How a simple thank you can lift the spirits

Conjoined Terms

Sometimes your lingo needs a little mojo

1968 a Half Century Later

A Year (Until Now?) Like No Other

Intimations of Fascism

The problem with hating the haters

A Palate for the Finer Things

Pondering a father’s thirst for respectability

The Wine Lover’s Daughter: A Memoir by Anne Fadiman

What He Stood For

How Angus Cameron, one of the most significant editors in the history of American publishing, responded to being targeted by the McCarthy blacklist

Who Is Blake Whiting?

The most astonishingly productive historian in recent times is someone you’ll never meet

The Importance of Being Idle

What Paul Lafargue taught us about work

Gilded Guilt

On Taylor Swift, Julian Fellowes, and the class conflicts that never die

The Popper Principle

Did Plato really espouse ideas that led eventually to totalitarianism?

It’s a Wonderful (Falling Apart) Life

In the disrepair of our everyday world are suggestions of life’s burdens and consolations

The Conspiracist Cotton Mather

The zealot who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials initially voiced restraint—what changed?

Baby Shoggoth Is Listening

Why are some writers tailoring their work for AI, and what does this mean for the future of writing and reading?

What Is an American Hero, Anyway?

Lists of great artists say more about the list-maker than the artist

My First Novel

A jean jacket, a muse, and a dream

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