But he died before he could finish his book on natural history. As Emerson put it, Thoreau “depart[ed] out of Nature before… he has been really shown to his peers for what he is.”
Search results
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our favorite stories of the week, featuring San Francisco Chronicle, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Wired and New York Magazine.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Starring in Japanese Reality TV
Nagging questions and doubts remain. Have we somehow prostituted ourselves for the vicarious entertainment of television viewers? Has the private language, the intimate currency of our happy household, been debased by making it public? I had thought it would be ‘fun.’ I was wrong. But somehow it has felt like an education of sorts — […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine)
The end of divine rule in postwar Japan, and the absolute power of General MacArthur.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Haruki Murakami on the Weirdness of His Birthday as a Public Event
In the introduction to “Birthday Stories,” a 2004 anthology edited by Haruki Murakami, Murakami writes about the particular weirdness of having his birthday become a public event.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
The Trick to It All: A Conversation with Photographer Henry Leutwyler
Henry Leutwyler on portraiture and the magic of inanimate objects.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Gaijin Who Makes Great Ramen
As a ramen maniakku or enthusiast myself, I reread Lucky Peach‘s debut Ramen Issue once a year. The issue has an essay by chef Ivan Orkin, where he tells what it was like operating a ramen restaurant in Japan, as a gaijin, or outsider. Lucky Peach is a food quarterly started by chef David Chang and writer Peter Meehan in 2011. The […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Trick to It All: A Conversation with Photographer Henry Leutwyler
Henry Leutwyler on portraiture and the magic of inanimate objects.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The House Where You Live Forever
The reversible destiny of Madeline Gins.
