Cover Story
This Man Should Not Be Executed
Billy Joe Wardlow murdered a man, but mitigating facts say he should not pay for that crime with his life
by Lincoln Caplan
Articles
Changing Trains
In Stuttgart, in 1943, my mother escaped bombs falling on the station. Has her terror expressed itself in me?
by Catharina Coenen
Channeling Emerson
At work in his timeless, smoke-scented, ghost-crammed study at the old manse
by James Marcus
A Transcendentalist at Work
Thoreau spent his last dozen years in this garret, making sense of what he could see from his windows
by Richard Higgins
Encounters Of f the Page
After conducting 250 author interviews over four decades, I’m still engaged but a lot less awestruck
by Wendy Smith
Departments
Editor's Note
Letter From …
Tuning Up
American Places
Works in Progress
Commonplace Book
Book Essay
Norman Maclean and Me
Advice for living and drinking from the author of A River Runs Through It
Rebecca McCarthy
Book Reviews
History, Alive and Well
A writer’s tour of the Soviet world, 30 years after its collapse
