CATEGORIES
The Special Child
In his unsettling trilogy about a possibly divine boy, J. M. Coetzee asks how we recognize the truth when it enters the world.
What Takes Our Breath Away
An undertaker reflects on the one thing death can’t steal: our stories.
A Motherhood Reset
How quarantining showed me what my children had been missing—and what I had, too
Robert Stone's Dark Dream of America
His novelistic ambition to define the national condition is more relevant than ever.
The Sculptor Who Made Art Move
How Alexander Calder gave objects a life of their own
The Shark and The Shrimpers
After the BP oil spill, a well-known lawyer helped land a $2 billion settlement for gulf coast seafood-industry workers, including 42,000 vietnamese fishermen. Only one problem: they did'nt exist.
The Secret of Scooby-Doo's Enduring Appeal
Why on earth has the formulaic series, which debuted half a century ago, outlasted just about everything else on television?
Childhood in an anxious age and the crisis of modern parenting
Imagine for a moment that the future is going to be even more stressful than the present. Maybe we don’t need to imagine this. You probably believe it. According to a survey from the Pew Research Center last year, 60 percent of American adults think that three decades from now, the U.S. will be less powerful than it is today. Almost two-thirds say it will be even more divided politically. Fifty-nine percent think the environment will be degraded. Nearly three-quarters say that the gap between the haves and have-nots will be wider. A plurality expect the average family’s standard of living to have declined. Most of us, presumably, have recently become acutely aware of the danger of global plagues.
“At 14, I Could've Pointed Out everybody Who Would Be Dead"
Nikki King grew up surrounded by the opioid epidemic. Now she's leading a novel and promising program to help people in remote areas.
What China Wants
Chinese leaders’ combination of superiority and insecurity is growing more dangerous. The U.S. needs a new strategy to reflect that
Being Friends With Philip Roth
During his last two decades, we spent thousands of hours in each other’s company. Ours was a conversation neither of us could have done without.
THE BRAINIEST HITTER
Can Joey Votto outsmart age?
EXILE IN THE AGE OF MODI
How Hindu nationalism has trampled the founding idea of my country
The Reigning Master of Family Drama
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, his first set outside of Japan, showcases the great director’s signature theme.
How to destroy a government
The president is winning his war on american institutions
How to tackle a Giraffe
The planet’s tallest animal is in far greater danger than people might think. Saving it begins with a daunting act of physical courage.
The Supreme Court's Enduring Bias
Over the past half-century, siding with the powerful against the vulnerable has been the rule in almost every area of the law.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER
Opposition to water fluoridation, while often vocal, has been largely a fringe crusade. But solid evidence for fluoridation’s value is surprisingly hard to find.
Reiki Can't Possibly Work. So Why Does It?
The 20th-century Japanese healing therapy is now available in many hospitals. What its ascendance says about shifts in how American patients and doctors think about health care.
WHAT HAPPENED TO JAKE MILLISON?
WHEN A YOUNG RANCHER WENT MISSING, HIS FAMILY SAID HE’D SKIPPED TOWN. BUT HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM BETTER THAN THAT, AND THEY REFUSED TO LET HIM SIMPLY DISAPPEAR.
IT'S ALL SO… PREMIOCRE
A guide to the new age of Potemkin luxury
The World's Favorite Drug
The dark history of how coffee took over
THE PERKS OF BEING A WEIRDO
How not fitting in can lead to creative thinking
Hilary Mantel Takes Thomas Cromwell Down
As the author’s remarkable trilogy ends, her epic hero’s self-mastery is newly in doubt.
Can You Still Trust Nate Silver?
The leader of the data revolution believes he got 2016 right—and the rest of the media is in danger of getting 2020 wrong.
Abraham Lincoln's Radical Moderation
What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t
The NUCLEAR FAMILY Was a MISTAKE
The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half-century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together.
The New Rules of Music Snobbery
Hulu’s High Fidelity reboot captures the end of elitist condescension and the rise of fervent eclecticism.
The Art of Second Chances
In Emily St. John Mandel’s disaster-steeped fiction, a derailed life can take multiple forms.
The Abortion Doctor and His Accuser
When a reproductive- rights activist accused one of the most respected physicians in the movement of sexually assaulting her, everyone quickly took sides. The divide exposed differences among women that are typically expressed only in private.