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

Cudillero

“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Saturday Morning Hike

Memories deepen this cherished place

Educating

We teach by being ourselves

America’s Snake

An excerpt from Ted Levin’s new book about the rise and fall of the rattlesnake

Think Always of the Reader

The Bulletin Board of Your Head

Who has a ponytail at 70?

The Dump

Some things should not be buried and forgotten

Gatekeepers

Medical science needs to back off

My Life with Wagner

An excerpt from Christian Thielemann’s book about a lifetime of conducting

The Judgment of Paris

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