Can You Crack the Dickens Code?
The great Victorian writer used baffling shorthand in his notes and documents. Academics and coders are toiling to decipher 10 manuscripts that survived.
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What Does It Take to Be a Competitive Scrabble Player?
Oliver Roeder provides readers some fascinating insight into the highs and lows of competitive Scrabble.
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An Archive of Artist Deaths at the Met
Arturo B. de St. M. D’Hervilly's macabre archive reports the deaths of painters, sculptors, and photographers of the early 20th century.
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Our Love for Libraries Told in Photographs
Robert Dawson’s The Public Library: A Photographic Essay is a visual love letter to libraries and a testament to the power of reading.
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Sofi Thanhauser’s Sweeping History of Getting Dressed
Sofi Thanhauser's Worn is a wide-ranging exploration of clothing, and how it impacts our daily lives and the planet.
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Sheila Heti Transforms Her Diaries Into Autofiction
Sheila Heti turns her diary entries into an inventive work of autofiction for A New York Times subscriber-only newsletter initiative.
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Jessamine Chan’s Debut Calls Modern-Day Parenting Into Question
Is it possible to have universal standards separate from the influence of race, class, and culture? Can the teaching of parenting ever be truly objective?
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An Examination of the Trauma Plot
The ways we write about trauma have evolved. "In a world infatuated with victimhood," Parul Sehgal writes for The New Yorker, "has trauma emerged as a passport to status—our red badge of courage?"
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Raven Leilani on Writing Complex and Contradictory Black Women Protagonists
Raven Leilani discusses her award-winning debut, a book full of biting and humorous commentary on the politics of race, gender, and desire.
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Sequoia Nagamatsu’s Dystopian Debut Is a Must-Read for the New Year
Sequioa Nagamatsu discusses his much-awaited debut novel about people living in a future beset by the Arctic Plague.
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Rebecca Solnit on the Value of Nonlinear Narratives
Solnit's work mirrors the workings of a living, breathing ecosystem, and calling it an essay collection shows a "failure to recognize internal cohesion."
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Embracing Tackiness with Rax King
Rax King discusses her intimate and hilarious essay collection and defining tackiness as "utter unselfconscious sincerity."
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The Benefits of Bilingualism
Masha Rumer takes a brief look at bilingualism, its history in the United States, and the benefits of growing up speaking more than one language.
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The Story Behind Penguin Modern Classics’ Iconic Cover Designs
Henry Eliot provides an essential guide to the Penguin Modern Classics series, which has showcased key works in literature for the past 60 years.
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The Climate Crisis and the Exclusion of Non-White Voices
Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate speaks about her time at the Arctic Basecamp and being cropped out of a key news photo by the Associated Press.
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Anne Carson: Herakles Junkie
Anne Carson provides fans of Greek tragedy with an intelligent and delightfully bizarre reimagining of Euripides's Herakles.
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The International Scramble for a Nobel Laureate’s Work
Booksellers—both large and small—are struggling to stock books by Abdulrazak Gurnah, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
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That Old Book Smell Explained
Jude Stewart’s illuminating new book, Revelations in Air, reveals why people are drawn to that “old book smell” and breaks down the chemical reactions involved in producing the scent.
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