The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

Birthday Boy

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Amy Wetsch

Life, magnified

The Weight of a Stone

Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology

New Year, Old Year

“The Horses” by Edwin Muir

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Snow Maiden

Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice

Ho Ho Horror

Why not make this Christmas a little darker?

A Story for Christmas

What Happened to the Social Agenda?

Leading modernist architects once wanted to improve the lives of everyday people; now they hope to astonish and amuse their elite clients

Globalization and Its Discontents

The directors of movies Babel and Caché tell complex stories of families caught in ever-expanding worlds

Reality Revisited

Caracas: Living Large on Oil

Defeat

Findings: Privacy Revealed

From the Archives

The Mind at Work and Play

Five Poems

Happy Talk

What did we know about joy, and when did we know it?

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

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