SPOTLIGHT

The Writer in the Family

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

By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

The Writer in the Family

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

By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025

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

Asturias Days

New Year, Old Year

Read Me a Poem

“The Horses” by Edwin Muir

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Smarty Pants Podcast

The Snow Maiden

Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice

Smarty Pants Podcast

Ho Ho Horror

Why not make this Christmas a little darker?

Asturias Days

A Story for Christmas

Web Essays

A State of Perpetual Unease

Sartre’s essay on French anti-Semitism cast the problem in existential terms

Article

Shooting a Dog

During a deployment in Iraq, a young soldier confronts a fundamental paradox about the masculine temperament in wartime

Asturias Days

Lighting a Match

Read Me a Poem

“The Coming of Light” by Mark Strand

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Tammy West

Climate grief (without despair)

Asturias Days

Go Gentle

Read Me a Poem

Selections from Hafiz’s Little Book of Life

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Cover Story

In the Forest of the Colobus

At a Gambian nature reserve, troops of endangered monkeys—and numerous other creatures—enact a grand drama that plumbs the mysteries of life, death, and regeneration

Article

Notes From the Front

Henry Kissinger’s Vietnam diary shows that he knew the war was lost a decade before it ended

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current issue

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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

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Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

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Winter 2025