Americans Are Tired of Choice
How did freedom become synonymous with having lots of options?
Is America Really Exceptional?
What happens anywhere—including moves toward authoritarianism—can also happen here.
Between ‘the Drive to Forget and the Obligation to Remember’
Argentina’s unfinished reckoning shows how difficult it can be to recover from state terror.
How the Grateful Dead Nearly Solved the Problem With Live Music
The band’s innovative sound system made them sound better than ever. It also nearly broke them.
Lamentations
A short story
Seven Summers
When Hulk Hogan Turned Heel
Pro wrestling—and America?—was never the same.
A Philosophy That Sees ‘Women as Doers’
What if function, not form, dictated what was in fashion?
The Feminine Pursuit of Swoleness
Casey Johnston’s new book, A Physical Education, considers how weight lifting can help you unlearn diet culture.
The Making of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle
How the novelist turned the violence and randomness of war into a cosmic joke
The Mainstreaming of Literary Kink
A noirish novel set in the world of strip clubs and BDSM dungeons ventures beyond titillation and into the daily grind.
It Has Pockets!
How Claire McCardell changed women’s fashion
A New History of the Western Hemisphere
A recent book suggests that Latin American democracy may hold lessons for the current U.S. political moment
What Are Emoji?
Unpacking the 🍑, the ️🤡, and the 👍
For Now
A poem
Toni Morrison’s Definition of a Legacy
As a writer and an editor, she put humanity plainly on the page, where it would outlast her and her critics alike.
The Cure for Guilty Memories
A fantastical new novel from Karen Russell turns the whispered secrets of a Dust Bowl town into a bold metaphor for repressed history.
Fools for Love
A short story
The Perils of ‘Design Thinking’
How did the concept become the solution to society’s most deeply entrenched problems?
How Toni Morrison Changed Publishing
At night, she worked on her novels. By day, as an editor at Random House, she championed a new generation of writers.
The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction
Literature is often pushed on allegedly reluctant men as a machine for empathy. I read it for a different reason.