At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I led a virtual discussion of War and Peace, with the thought that someone else might enjoy reading the novel with me. Three thousand people ended up ...
The AARP stands for nothing. In 1999, the group announced that its four-letter initialism, which for more than forty years had denoted the American Association of Retired Persons, would thenceforth ...
This month’s Letters section is devoted to remembrances of Lewis H. Lapham (1935–2024), the editor of Harper’s Magazine from 1976 to 1981 and from 1983 to 2006. I first worked for Lewis just out of ...
From Mysticism, which was published last month by New York Review Books. “Mysticism” is the word for what we modern, critical philosophers are meant to distrust in the name of enlightenment. It is all ...
I’ve written in many places, some wonderful, others makeshift or uncomfortable. I’ve written on trains and in hotel rooms, at ergonomically perfect desks and on laptops balanced on my knees. I once ...