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

A laptop sits open on a rustic wooden table next to a coffee and an evocative travel photograph
View from Rue Saint-Georges

Too Much of a Good Thing

Relief at the end of summer vacation

Punting along a river
Web Essays

July 21

Pond
Web Essays

July 10

Photo of Oliver Sacks
Book Reviews

Head Cases

Field notes on a beautiful friendship

New Grant statue unveiling at West Point
Cover Story

Moral Courage and the Civil War

Monuments ask us to look at the past, but how they do it exposes crucial aspects of the present and has an inescapable effect on the future

Etching of 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester
Book Reviews

The Great Convergence

How continental art and literature went global

Toppled statue of Confederate solider in Durham, North Carolina
Cover Story

Reflections on a Silent Soldier

After the television cameras went away, a North Carolina city debated the future of its toppled Confederate statue

Black and white photo of Susan Sontag
Book Reviews

Image Is Not Everything

A definitive portrait of a celebrated American intellectual

Painting of Saint Augustine
Book Reviews

Spirits in the Material World

Two new books consider the past and present of Christendom

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

Please enter a valid email address
That address is already in use
The security code entered was incorrect
Thanks for signing up

current issue

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

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