SPOTLIGHT

The Importance of Being Idle

What Paul Lafargue taught us about work

By Robert Zaretsky Monday, March 30, 2026

SPOTLIGHT

The Importance of Being Idle

What Paul Lafargue taught us about work

By Robert Zaretsky Monday, March 30, 2026

Measure by Measure

The Maestro as Engineer

Ernest Ansermet and Arthur Honegger’s speeding train

View from Rue Saint-Georges

Protected by Privilege?

An exercise in illogic

Shelf Life

Incarcerating the Innocent

An excerpt from Lara Bazelon’s examination of wrongful imprisonment

Next Line, Please

Time to Tee Up

Web Essays

Podcasts To Get You Thinking

Our new Daily Scholar columnist reviews the best educational offerings

Asturias Days

Flying Free

Measure by Measure

On St. Cecilia’s Day

Handel’s ode for November 22

View from Rue Saint-Georges

Bill of Health

The shock of entering the American health-care system

Article

The Bottom of the Ninth

In baseball and in life, there is a cost to our pursuit of an error-free existence

Asturias Days

Bruno the Billy Goat

Read Me a Poem

“Field and Forest” by Randall Jarrell

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

William J. O’Brien

Playtime

Smarty Pants Podcast

Shotgun Ornithology

James H. McCommons on the first American efforts to save the birds

Tuning Up

Thinking in the Margins

What Oliver Sacks jotted down in the books he read

Asturias Days

A Gift

Read Me a Poem

“A Birthday Present” by Sylvia Plath

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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On the Trail of Jeremiah

Robert Redford, the lure of the West, and the art of getting away

Book Reviews

Who Is Thinking?

The quest to discover the answer to an age-old question

Article

‘In the Presence of People No Longer Here’
loading

Historians in the Ukrainian city of Lviv are documenting the horrors of the past while living in the shadow of war

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Commonplace Book

Spring 2026