Happy Talk
What did we know about joy, and when did we know it?
By Wayne Curtis Thursday, March 1, 2007
The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is WrongBy Jennifer Michael Hecht / Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy By Barbara Ehrenreich
The Impulse to Exclude
Ralph Ellison wrote one great novel and then lived a life that is hard to admire
By Phyllis Rose Thursday, March 1, 2007
Hearsay
From the divinely inspired to the pathological, a history of auditory hallucination
By Richard Restak Thursday, March 1, 2007
Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination By Daniel B. Smith
An Epic in Flux
Gilgamesh, the world’s first great literary work, is still being pieced together
By Sudip Bose Thursday, March 1, 2007
The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh By David Damrosch
Design Problem
Does the internal physiology of animals imply a harmony of structure and function?
By Mary Beth Saffo Thursday, March 1, 2007
The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself By J. Scott Turner
War Weary
If Iraq is not another Vietnam, why do I find myself rereading Dispatches?
By Wendy Smith Thursday, March 1, 2007
The Dispossessed
First we stopped noticing members of the working class, and now we’re convinced they don’t exist
By William Deresiewicz Friday, December 1, 2006
Keepers of the Old Ways
Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, January 17, 2025
“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers
Poems read aloud, beautifully
By Amanda Holmes Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Island Royalty
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
By Madison Smartt Bell Monday, January 13, 2025
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christopheby Marlene L. Daut
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
