When attempting to write a review of the official Susan Sontag biography, our reviewer finds himself on shaky ground after learning new information about the author.
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Posted inCurrent Events, Science & Nature, Uncategorized
Despair All Ye Who Enter Into the Climate Change Fray
A climate change feature at New York Magazine leads a scientist to take on its extraordinary claims.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Teaching a Stone to Fly
The perfect skipping stone has “lobes” that act as spokes, keeping the stone above the water.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Beached Whales
A meditation on death and one of nature’s marine mysteries, and another Notable essay in this year’s Best American Essays anthology.
Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Quotes
Trump’s Wall Would Devastate Big Bend National Park
Join Nick Paumgarten on a trip down the Rio Grande to understand what we’d lose if Trump’s border wall destroys this ecosystem.
Posted inBusiness, Business & Tech, Commentary, Current Events, Story, Uncategorized
A Stimulus Plan for the Mutual Aid Economy
Policymakers’ neglect of caregiving harms a major force in American labor.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
‘I’ve Always Been Either Praised or Accused of Ambition’: An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver takes a rigorous, scientific approach to her novels’ subjects — but, as a woman writer, her authority is often challenged.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Bowie Knives, Concealed Rifles, and Caning Charles Sumner
As the Civil War loomed, weapons — like the recently invented bowie knife and rifles that were shipped to Kansas hidden in crates labeled as bibles — became complex political symbols.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
‘Archive, Archive, Archive’: Valeria Luiselli on Reading In Order To Write
To write “Lost Children Archive,” Valeria Luiselli studied the refugee crisis “obliquely,” reading about other historical moments of children’s mass displacement, amassing a reader’s archive of loss.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Polar Exploration: The Story of Pain
It’s -40F. Your mission? Travel 20 miles back to town on skinny skis while pulling a heavy sled over the frozen earth. Oh, by the way — you have 72 hours or you fail the exam.
