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

Web Essays

The NASA You Never Hear About

No, the agency did not invent Tang or Velcro, but its discoveries have many applications in our day-to-day lives

A man and his dog sit in the cab of a druck, with the sun filtering in over ranchland.
Works in Progress

Heritage Ranching

Preserving a way of life

Books Essay

Finding Your Voice

How one writer discovered his when he stopped looking for it and learned instead to listen

A rocket launches into the sky amidst clouds at night.
Cover Story

Our Fate Is in the Stars

Today’s space program still does amazing things, but nothing like Apollo. It’s time to begin again.

A wall of glaciers, colored in a gradient of blue
Works in Progress

Speeding at a Glacial Pace

Four questions about the future of Antarctica

Portrait of the Artist

Phaan Howng

Fluorescent Waterfalls

The sun-kissed spires and roofs of a Mediterranean city viewed from the shore
Article

Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea

In search of the places that inspired the Iliad—and the traces of upheaval, conflict, and migration that led to its creation

An illustration of tiled smartphones showing a simplified person graphic and a giant red checkmark
Works in Progress

Counting Americans in the Digital Age

The census goes online

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

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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)
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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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Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

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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