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Saturday, January 20, 2024

In Search of Lost Time in 📕 book clubs

 Art must not serve might.

 Karel ÄŒapek, born in 1890

Why we keep showing up to book clubs — even when we haven't read the book ðŸ“š 


How TikTok made the ‘Hugh Grant bookshop’ viral - again A new generation is discovering the joy of reading on paper thanks to an electronic medium.


Articles of Note

Ever wondered why every coffee shop looks the same? They are beholden to sad, algorithmically-driven design trends... more »


New Books

All hail Guy Davenport, who praised androgyny in the National Review and translated the Greeks as he munched fried bologna... more »




Essays & Opinions

With major elections looming, a moral panic has swept the globe: social media empowers populism. Is there anything to that?... more »


Jan. 16, 2024

Articles of Note

Mansa Musa, a 14th-century West African monarch, possessed nearly half the gold known to exist in the Eastern Hemisphere... more »


New Books

To the extent that fatness is unfairly conflated with sickness, can a philosopher cure fatphobia? Kate Manne is trying ... more »


Essays & Opinions

What’s most difficult about Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is finding the time to read it. Ryan Ruby explains... more »


Jan. 15, 2024

Articles of Note

A bruiser until the very end, Milton Friedmanknew the value of adopting the role of the underdog... more »


New Books

"Some books are so utterly bad that the case against them can be made based on almost any excerpt.” Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk is one of those books... more »


Essays & Opinions

The evolution of celebrity analysis: Madonna-ology was based on critical theory, Taylor Swift studies is concerned with teaching skills... more »


Jan. 12, 2024

Articles of Note

The most surprising thing about a writing group at the CIA? No one is working on a spy novel... more »


New Books

Free will is an illusion, argues much of 21st-century science. The neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell begs to differ... more »


Essays & Opinions

Flaubert’s solitude. In 1851, he asked rhetorically: “Am I really to have a goal other than Art itself?”... more »


Jan. 11, 2024

Articles of Note

The classical-music establishment’s challenge: How to foster the passionate devotion that allows an art form to survive... more »


New Books

The conglomeration of publishing explains some of our literary culture. But does it really explain all of it?... more »


Essays & Opinions

Once you enter Guy Davenport’s labyrinth of learning and imagination, you never get out. John Jeremiah Sullivan explains... more »


Jan. 10, 2024

Articles of Note

Our punctuation, ourselves. What are we really talking about when we talk about exclamation points? ... more »


New Books

Virginia Woolf likened her to a “giant cucumber” with “the freakishness of an elf” — but does Margaret Cavendish deserve a closer look?... more »


Essays & Opinions

“No one can really believe in an apology until after it happens,” says Agnes Callard. “That’s the telltale mark of a miracle”... more »


Jan. 9, 2024

Articles of Note

The first influencer, Beau Brummell, exuded “calculated nonchalance.” He was a harbinger of our celebrity culture... more »


New Books

Katherine Mansfield flirted with the Bloomsbury set at their parties — then plotted how to crush them... more »


Essays & Opinions

“Critique is not against reason; it is the very practice of reason.” Peter Gordon lays to rest some misconceptions of critical theory... more »


Jan. 8, 2024

Articles of Note

Academic dishonesty, improper attribution, citational errors — why are professors so wary of invoking “plagiarism” in the case of Claudine Gay?... more »


New Books

“Although the concept of equality may seem intuitive, it is surprisingly difficult to pin down with any precision”... more »


Essays & Opinions

Tom Wolfe was less an inventive journalist or mediocre novelist − though he was both – than a grand theorist of American life... more »


Jan. 5, 2024

Articles of Note

Does the afterlife exist? Yes, thought Kurt Gödel. Where else could humans fulfill their potential?... more »


New Books

Can a poet with no experience of combat or trenches capture the reality of a frontline soldier in WWI?... more »


Essays & Opinions

Planning to give up alcohol, smoking, or chocolate? Behind such self-sacrifice lies the despair of just wanting to give up... more »


Jan. 4, 2024

Articles of Note

The medical-mystery genre has a familiar arc, usually punctuated by a revelatory “aha” moment. Not for Tom Scocca... more »


New Books

Ostriches beheaded, horses made into consuls. Embellishing the scandalous tales of Roman Emperors doesn’t make them useless... more »


Essays & Opinions

Samuel Moyn laments liberalism’s lack of an aspiration to perfection. But that never was a liberal tenet, and shouldn’t be... more »


Jan. 3, 2024

Articles of Note

The first book of photographyBritish Algae, a binding of hundreds of cyanotypes compiled by an amateur botanist... more »


New Books

Jill Lepore: “The internet is an astonishing product of human ingenuity and an incredible archive. But … it has not realized the promise of democratization”... more »


Essays & Opinions

Amid calls to “decolonize” everything from hipsters to universities, one wonders: Where did this jargonized swagger originate?... more »


Jan. 2, 2024

Articles of Note

Confessions of a bookseller. The essential problem with how we talk about the job – and it is a job – is preciosity... more »


New Books

The way to get ahead in economics, Robert Solow quipped, is to provide a “brilliant argu­ment in favor of an absurd conclusion.” Has anything changed?... more »


Essays & Opinions

“The abandonment of ornament has levied a heavy toll on the practice of architecture, tantamount to misplaci