Essays

Essays [ssa_access]

Martha Foley’s Granddaughters

What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett

Essays [ssa_access]

To Catch a Sunset

Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love

Essays [ssa_access]

The Next New Thing

In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before

Essays [ssa_access]

Imperfecta

Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing

Essays [ssa_access]

The Widower’s Lament

After the death of the poet Wendy Barker, her grieving husband turns to the literature of loss

Essays [ssa_access]

The World at the End of a Line

The grandson of one of American literature’s Lost Generation novelists reflects on his namesake’s love of the sea

Essays [ssa_access]

The Goddess Complex

A set of revered stone deities was stolen from a temple in northwestern India; their story can tell us much about our current reckoning with antiquities trafficking

Essays [ssa_access]

Last Rites and Comic Flights

A funeral in a 1984 Japanese film offers moments of slapstick amid the solemnity

Ulysses at 100 [ssa_access]

The Believer

When nobody would touch Joyce’s manuscript, Sylvia Beach stepped in

Miles from Nowhere

On a return trip to the wilderness of British Columbia, the author revisits a rough and exquisite landscape

Rum and Coca-Cola

The murky derivations of a sweet drink and a sassy World War II song

The Embarrassment of Riches

Do not pity me for having more money than anyone I know. Still, wealth does have its mild difficulties

The Case for Love

Did the friendship of an early Supreme Court justice and the wife of a colleague ever cross the line of propriety?

Findings: A Bogey Tale

Leaving Race Behind

Our growing Hispanic population creates a golden opportunity

On the Outside Looking In

Paris and its banlieues in November 2005

Onward, Christian Liberals

Christianity’s long tradition of social injustice

What Jesus Did

Forget about Christ as secular sage, historical figure, or even as Christian

● This week's archive pick

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