Cover Story
A Brief History of Secession
Why Calexit might not be as crazy as you think
by Richard Striner
Articles
Interstates
How My Italian-American husband ate his way into the good graces of my African-American family
by Emily Bernard
The Cloistered Books of Peru
A convent in the Andes is home to a treasure trove of rare, and possibly unique, early volumes
by Helen Hazen
Keeping Faith
After a loss from which there is no recovery, I turned to books—not for solace or forgetting, but simply to survive
by Mark Lane
The Ultimate Pawn Sacrifice
My brother’s life mirrored that of Bobby Fischer, the deeply troubled chess master
by Jay Neugeboren
Departments
Editor's Note
Letters
Letter From …
Tuning Up
Commonplace Book
American Places
Fiction
Works in Progress
Arts
Scenes from a Lost World
Remember when urban life was gritty and bleak, but also poetic?
Robert Campbell
Some Perspective, Please
Why is the age-old technique of representing three dimensions so maligned today?
Lincoln Perry
Book Essay
Found in Translation
A poet learns how to feel and see and think and sound in the language of his adopted home
Piotr Florczyk
Book Reviews
Taking Old Abe to Task
A historian’s uncommonly grim view of the Great Emancipator
