Emma Jacobs takes us on an illustrated journey of Hugo’s writing life in exile on Guernsey, where he completed Les Misérables.
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The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids
Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
All that Was Innocent and Violent: Girlhood in Post-Revolution Iran
Naz Riahi recalls her vibrant childhood in a suburb of Tehran, and considers how the harsh realities imposed by the still new Islamic Republic seeped into her family’s life.
Dispatch from Puerto Nowhere
Robert Lopez examines what it means to be an assimilated American from Puerto Rico, and what was gained and lost in the process.
Happiness is Fleeting
Good grief, adolescence is difficult. Luckily Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell found solidarity and guidance from The Peanuts Gang.
The Wind Sometimes Feels in Error
Each year the balloon strained and strained against its cords.
Beautiful Women, Ugly Scenes: On Novelist Nettie Jones and the Madness of ‘Fish Tales’
Edited by Toni Morrison, the 1983 novel ‘Fish Tales’ by Nettie Jones was supposed to set the literary world on fire. It didn’t.
Queens of Infamy: The Rise of Catherine de’ Medici
Kings and popes thought she was their pawn. The Merchant’s Daughter begged to differ.
Edward Gorey: A Highly Conjectural Man
When asked if there was “anything people don’t understand” about him, Gorey responded: “Yes. No. Yes. No.” A new biography by Mark Dery attempts to sort myth from reality.
We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Very Beginning
Early electric cars performed better in cities than internal combustion vehicles, but didn’t give riders the same illusion of freedom and masculine derring-do.
