SPOTLIGHT

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

By Stephanie Bastek Friday, January 17, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

By Stephanie Bastek Friday, January 17, 2025

Christmas lights
Asturias Days

A Christmas Carol

Read Me a Poem

“Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School” by Jane Kenyon

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Bookshelves
Web Essays

A Holiday Reading Roundup

Seven books published by the Scholar’s contributors in 2019

Portrait of the Artist

Holly Osborne

Blades of Grass

Smarty Pants Podcast

The Global Garage Sale

What happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard?

Asturias Days

Monkey Business

Read Me a Poem

An Excerpt from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Snowy branches
Shelf Life

Let It Snow

An excerpt from Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration

Smarty Pants Podcast

House of Mirrors

Carmen Maria Machado on her meta-memoir of a harrowing relationship

Next Line, Please

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

Asturias Days

Casa Gorín

Read Me a Poem

“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Book Reviews

Island Royalty

A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary

Article

The Writer in the Family

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

Asturias Days

Birthday Boy

Read Me a Poem

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Amy Wetsch

Life, magnified

Article

The Weight of a Stone

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

NEWSLETTER

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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

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