The First Draft of Cultural History
Lena Dunham’s new memoir is a fascinating primary source of Hollywood in the 2010s.
What To Read
If You Want a Better World, Act Like You Live in It
We’ve had Henry David Thoreau the environmentalist, the libertarian, the life coach. To understand his influence, think of him first as a dissident.
The Publishing Mystery That No One Wants to Talk About
A minimally speaking autistic man just wrote a best-selling book. Or did he?
The Paradox of Modern Medicine
Testing has become so advanced that doctors now miss important elements of diagnosis.
Fortunes
A short story
The Honor of the Layward Brothers
A short story
We Are Not One
A short story
Diseducators
A short story
Literature for a Post-Roe World
Fiction and poetry can help us grapple with our fears for the future—and remind us what we stand to lose in the present: Your weekly guide to the best in books
History Is Never Only One Person’s Story
A good group biography details with curiosity the ways, trivial and tremendous, that humans influence one another.
Empathy Isn’t Enough
The perils and limits of writing with a moral message: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Awkward Intimacy of Therapy
The practice may require vulnerability, but being heard can bring healing: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Books Swallowed by the Black Hole of the Coronavirus
Some spectacular titles had the terrible luck of being released in early 2020. They still deserve our attention.
Life, Literature, This Moment of June
The allure and the friction of city life are never clearer than they are in the summer: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Thin Line Between Sickness and Health
Nine books that helped me reframe my relationship to viruses, the most abundant biological entity on Earth
Learning How to Grieve in Public
What happens when private loss is widely shared instead of borne alone? Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Books That Taught a Debate Champion How to Argue
Through reading, I learned that disagreement can be a source of good, not ill, even in our polarized age.
What a Book Can Do for a Girl
A story that changes how a child sees can, in no small way, change her life: Your weekly guide to the best in books