Dr. Paul Farmer and three friends toured an Ebola treatment unit (E.T.U.) in Monrovia, Liberia, in October 2014. They watched as two brothers vomited and soiled themselves with diarrhea as […]
BOOK REVIEW
Dolly Parton as a Natural Woman
Sarah Smarsh empowers the country legend’s impoverished roots
Dolly Parton, 74, has been singing and performing as a self-described “backwoods Barbie” for over half a century. With chart-topping hits such as “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Here […]
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Journeys of Self-Acceptance, in Words and Pictures
Eleanor Crewes and Allie Brosh render their lives with insight
“We believe we make our choices, but no — they make us,” writes the late Daniel Menaker in his poem, “Last Will and Testament.” Though our choices add up to […]
BOOK REVIEW
Marilynne Robinson’s Prodigal Son Returns
Her latest novel, Jack, explores race, grace, and literature
Jack Boughton, the protagonist of Marilynne Robinson’s much-anticipated novel, Jack, is a thief, a liar, and an alcoholic. He is also exquisitely sensitive, self-deprecatingly funny, and finely attuned to the […]
BOOK REVIEW
Becoming a Teacher: The Perils of Success
Melinda D. Anderson writes of a teacher of color’s conflicts and skills
What is the likely career trajectory of an inventive, gifted Teacher of the Year who is passionate about racial and social justice and who works in an urban public school? […]
BOOK REVIEW
In x + y, Eugenia Cheng Envisions a World Without Gender
New terminology would prioritize ‘community over self’
Watch a video clip of mathematician Eugenia Cheng making puff pastry with Stephen Colbert, and you’ll quickly appreciate why her students at the Art Institute of Chicago surely consider themselves […]
BOOK REVIEW
Hugh Raffles’s Relentless Riffs in a Book of Unconformities
Exploring Earthly phenomena in a most encyclopedic way
A long sentence careens through Hugh Raffles’s The Book of Unconformities: Speculations on Lost Time. At 458 words, the sentence zigzags from a description of a helicopter ride gone wrong […]
BOOK REVIEW
Carl Hiaasen to Trump: Squeeze Me
Seeking vengeance for the un-sunshiny state of things
Leave it to satirist Carl Hiaasen to name the house band at Casa Bellicosa “The Collusionists.” Casa Bellicosa, a thinly disguised stand-in for Mar-a-Lago, is the Palm Beach setting at […]
BOOK REVIEW
In Memorial Drive, Poet Natasha Trethewey Revisits Her Mother’s Death
A daughter’s memoir untangles trauma and grapples with festering grief
In “Monument,” a poem in Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey describes watching ants bring soil up from her mother’s grave. “Believe me when I say/ I’ve tried not to begrudge them/ […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Wild, Weird, Witty Way of Birds
Jennifer Ackerman finds reflections of ourselves at the edges of bird behavior
Long ago, my children and I celebrated at the library whenever we came across a favorite picture book by Arnold Lobel. No matter how many times we read it, The […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Contrasts and Convergence of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
Penial Joseph’s The Sword and the Shield examines the titans of black power and civil rights
In 1972, James Baldwin wrote “The Shot That Echoes Still,” a painful and personal essay for Esquire magazine reflecting on the assassinations of Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther […]
BOOK REVIEW
In Why Fish Don’t Exist, Lulu Miller Finds Truth in Taxonomy
Reflecting on the obsessions of a Stanford scientist, she heals herself
Lulu Miller calls David Starr Jordan, the protagonist of her book Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, “David.” Born in the […]
BOOK REVIEW
Racism and The Broken Heart of America
Walter Johnson’s history of St. Louis documents the causes of a continuing crisis
In the months after the murder of black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, historian Walter Johnson began work on The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and […]
POETRY
Scissors (for Max)
Slip a pair of scissors in your pocket, my son. Lace your thumb and pointer through the hand holds. Steady! Leave the realm of your home, out the front door, […]
BOOK REVIEW
Unearthing the Corporate Misdeeds Behind ‘Death in Mud Lick’
Eric Eyre’s intrepid reporting on the opioid epidemic has a timely message
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eric Eyre braids together two riveting stories in Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic. Numbers are […]
