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

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

Shelf Life

Filling in the Blanks

An excerpt from How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption About Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong by Douglas B. Downey

Viral Days

Covid Fatigue on the Continent

In Europe, pandemic restrictions are returning after a summer of eating, drinking, and vacationing

Asturias Days

Pasamontañas

Read Me a Poem

“Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Viral Days

Smoke Out

Lighting up as the world is burning down

Viral Days

Coronavirus and the Coming Election

No matter who wins, the pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon

Smarty Pants Podcast

Morbid and Misunderstood

The science and history of books bound in human skin

Article

Art After the Plague

How painters through the ages have responded to contagion, pestilence, and deadly epidemics

Asturias Days

The Polar Bear

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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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Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

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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