Over Carolina
A poem for Sunday
Try Listening to Your Literature
Audiobooks are less demanding—and maybe that’s a good thing.
The Night Before I Leave Home
A poem for Wednesday
Tolstoy and Chill
Listening to books is more passive than reading them. That might be a good thing.
Nine Books That Will Actually Make You Laugh
Serious literature is better when it’s funny.
Death of an Avid Reader
Remembering Robert Gottlieb, the editor of Toni Morrison, Robert Caro, and many others, who died last week at 92
A Hamlet for Our Age of Racial Reckoning
A conversation between a leading Shakespeare scholar and this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park director about staging Hamlet in the Atlanta of 2020
The Summer My Father Was a Cowboy
A poem for Sunday
The Powerful Weirdness of Cormac McCarthy
On the death of a singular writer
The Fundamental Paradox of Latinidad
In his new book, Héctor Tobar tries to pin down an inherently slippery concept.
What’s So Funny About Dying?
Death is everywhere in Lorrie Moore’s strange new novel, and so is the author’s trademark jokiness.
What to Read When You’re Feeling Ambitious
Literature, rife with tales of ambition or slackerdom, can be well-equipped to answer questions about the costs and benefits of striving.
On the Death of Cormac McCarthy
The worlds depicted in his novels are not built for mortal humans like you and me.
Eat, Pray, Pander
The decision by Elizabeth Gilbert to indefinitely delay the publication of her novel is a wrongheaded attempt to help the Ukrainian cause.
A Podcast About the Airport Best Sellers We Can’t Escape
On the podcast If Books Could Kill, hosts Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri dive into the murky details of mass-market hits.
Philosophy Could Have Been a Lot More Fun
Two recent biographies, of Plato and Diogenes, show the divergent path Western thought could have taken.
Fieldnotes
A poem for Sunday
He saw ‘Redemption Where Others See Brimstone’
The humor and darkness of Charles Portis
Women Aren’t Just Small Men
We’re living in an age of “period positivity.” That’s not enough.
Inside Frank Bascombe’s Head, Again
Richard Ford’s hero is back.