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

Just Yesterday

“The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday

Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr

Burned

“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Paige Ledom

Out of the ordinary

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union by Richard Carwardine

My Grandson’s Run

An expression of love brings to mind others withheld

Among the Believers

Handel’s Messiah didn’t always have a sacred context

The Virtue of Mastery

Dedication, perseverance, and a rapper’s stellar performance

Double Your Pleasure

Michelle Osman

Big Sky Country

Brainwaves

A composer and a neuroscientist unravel the story of human creativity

Who Says You Can’t Go Home?

In dark times, a ray of hope in Alabama

The Splendor of Color

Remembering Vladimir de Pachmann

Combs, Clippers, and Comraderie

Barbershops offer much more than a trim and a shave

The Ones That Got Away

21 authors who’ve settled down in the sunny Mediterranean—and you can too!

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