The Latest
Books
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
For those who enjoy the unconventional bildungsroman—or are thirsting for some adventure—read this memoir by Laurie Lee. Originally published in 1969, it recounts the poet's long walk across…
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Category Unknown
Category Unknown by Koushik Banerjea is a dense and ambitious book that continues the conversation relaunched by the racial reckoning of 2020, "and reminds us that the conversation isn't the…
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The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
"Shattering one-sided, romanticized stories of how this country came to be…" Carol Ann Wilson reviews The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones.
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Two Novels that Strike Close to Home: On Finding Oneself in a Book
Geoffrey Dutton looks at the "book-within-a-book" literary device, as used in the 2015 novel Disclaimer— and his upcoming novel Her Own Devices.
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Interviews
The Writer’s Journey
The Writer’s Journey
Essays
Rikers Island: A Council Hearing Lacks Answers
The tragic story of Kalief Browder raised public awareness of the horrid reality for incarcerated persons at Rikers Island. Yet, needed change is too slow and a council hearing lacks answers.
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Essays
Rikers Island: A Council Hearing Lacks Answers
The tragic story of Kalief Browder raised public awareness of the horrid reality for incarcerated persons at Rikers Island. Yet, needed change is too slow and a council hearing lacks answers.
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The End of the Beginning
Building the Structural Foundation When I write, I have a plot sketched out in my mind and sometimes laying out the groundwork can be laborious and even boring. It’s essential, though, that I push my way through the initial drudgery and progress to the middle and the end of the story. When I finally type “The End,” I know I’m deluding myself. It’s only the end of the beginning. Usually at…
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Liu Xiaobo: Tyranny, Freedom of Conscience, and the Incompleteness of the Individual
After Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, I followed the news about him—this dissident public intellectual who had given the Chinese government a major headache. Having read many books about nonviolent thought and action, I sensed that Liu Xiaobo’s life and writing could deepen my understanding further: He believed that words followed by action could change the direction of a country.
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Creativity is the Human Condition
Throughout the majority of humanity’s existence, creativity has been regarded as a mystical enigma. Architect and architecture critic Robert Furneaux Jordan asserted that “to comprehend [creativity] fully would be to be God. We can never comprehend God.” Thanks to this prevailing opinion, it wasn’t until the late 1940s that the study of creativity even started down the path toward…
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