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In the twentieth century the messengers shot themselves. Most did so metaphorically, of course, though a few machos—­Ernest Hemingway and ­Hunter S. Thompson come to mind—did literally blow their...

At some point we must give up trying to understand other people. Love them, surely. But recognize that such a love cannot be based on comprehension. We need always...

My six-year-old son wants to join the Scouts, but I have mixed feelings. As an Eagle Scout, I am sympathetic to his attraction to pocketknives, campfires, the fellowship of...

For certain personalities, drugs such as methamphetamine have an almost irresistible appeal. Only later does it turn out that an addictive substance can take over your life, enslaving the...

Bulbous onion domes topped the Corinthian columns, and baroque stucco architraves lit up the drowsy city toward the end of day. The clock struck five as I approached the...

One day around 1836, in the ancient city of Dijon, the young French poet Aloysius Bertrand was dreaming his dreams, when “the cough of someone walking dispersed [his] reveries...

The myth of Narcissus tells of a beautiful young man’s obsession with his own image, captured in a reflecting pool. He scorns all others, so entranced by himself that he gives up food, drink, and human connection to stare at his own reflection...

The world has changed and the ground has shifted under us. All that is solid melts into air, in a new age defined by what Zygmunt Bauman called “liquid...

Something of a shift in the landscape is ­signaled when a press like Polity releases, almost simultaneously, two book-length critical engagements...

Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine in the month of February, rather than waiting a few weeks longer, because the spring thaw was about to turn Ukraine’s soil into a muddy morass on which Russian tanks could not travel...

American Catholicism is in steep decline. In 2000, 2.6 million American children attended Catholic schools. In 2025, only 1.6 million did. In 2001, more than a quarter-million Catholic weddings...

I wait for themthis dark spun dawn,kinglet, titmouse, nuthatch, wren,names so sweet on winter’s frozen tongue,such feathered dancingin this hard-edged timedelights the eye, and, yes, the heart;where shadows silenceshattered...

Only he could see them clearly: the wayThey curl their shadows close beneath their leaves, Cupping clefts of glacial cold—how they grow Out of the dead parts of themselves, new stalks To...

When you select the proper tools to use,favor those that make delightful toys,like whistling tops driven by auger screws. Wisdom selects the proper tools to use,cheerful words that teach us...

Every year the American Library Association marks “Banned Books Week,” a celebration devoted mostly to books…