SPOTLIGHT

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

By Sam Kean Thursday, January 30, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

By Sam Kean Thursday, January 30, 2025

Asturias Days

Cancer

Read Me a Poem

“The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Charles Ives at 150

Anchoring Shards of Memory

We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both
composers mined the past to root themselves in an unstable present

Charles Ives at 150

The Power of the Common Soul

Ives, music-making, and hope

Smarty Pants Podcast

A Toothsome Tale

Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites

Web Essays

Writer on Board

The cruise story from Twain to Shteyngart

Asturias Days

Guillermo

Cover Story

Moondance

Experience the marvel that is
night-blooming tobacco

Asturias Days

Burned

Read Me a Poem

“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Paige Ledom

Out of the ordinary

Article

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)
Book Reviews

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Asturias Days

Cudillero

Read Me a Poem

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

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Smarty Pants Podcast

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Next Line, Please

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

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current issue

Book Reviews

Aging Out

Many of us do not go gentle into that good night

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Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

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The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025

Book Reviews

Aging Out

Many of us do not go gentle into that good night

Article

The Fair Fields
loading

Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

Poetry

The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025