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The “vibe shift” of 5 November was never going to be felt with equal intensity in all walks of life. Even high-Richter scale... Read More

Lamb Early in The Novelist, the narrator reflects on Kirkegaard’s idea of the real novelist. Did you ever arrive at a certain... Read More

When many people I know from my old life in New York find out I've emigrated to Lisbon, they assume I did so for typically self-interested... Read More

Andrew Ewell’s Set for Life has already met its deserved fate. The novel is doing as poorly as it should on Goodreads and has... Read More

In the last few decades, there’s been a new wave of what’s called “advanced meditation” that offers access to deep,... Read More

On a chilly day in Brooklyn, I paused to admire two trashmen at the intersection of Wyckoff and Suydam as they worked during rush hour. In... Read More

What does it really mean to be “well” in 2025—and who gets to claim that wellness? In her new book, How to Be Well, Amy... Read More

Is it “discrimination” to have a transportation policy that focuses on families’ needs? Some San Francisco Democrats... Read More

With the immediate landscape of AI shifting so quickly, it can be hard to keep the broader view in sight. Read More

On a sunny day in late March, Michael Matteo, Jr., lounged on a grassy berm beyond the right-field fence at Clover Park, a minor-league... Read More

No one will ever describe Ron Chernow as a miniaturist. He has written brick-size biographies of John D. Rockefeller, Ulysses S. Grant,... Read More

“We wouldn’t be where we are without Mike.” The Mike referenced was the one and only Michael Milken, but what was said... Read More

It has to start somewhere, this business of being an intellectual. Chances are, it doesn’t start well. Your early efforts are bound be... Read More

In the summer of 2022, I drove to Michael Jordan’s childhood home in Wilmington with my 11-year-old son. It was a balmy, sun-dappled... Read More

Of the many unpleasant truths about humanity that the Covid pandemic brought to light, one of the more astonishing was how many people seemed... Read More

I pushed my chips to the center of the table on a rain‑soaked April morning in 2015, halfway through a “young tenure‑track faculty... Read More

Do something on Samuel Johnson, the editor urges me. Nothing political. Not “What would Samuel Johnson think of the method of tariff... Read More

When the ­Civil War broke out in 1861, Sam ­Clemens (not yet “Mark Twain”) didn’t know where to stand. He was... Read More

The first time you publish a review, once the temporary excitement of the byline wears off, you are forced to confront an age-old question:... Read More

Novels inhabit rooms the way people do, which is to say absentmindedly or incompletely. Often, the novel’s figures hardly notice the... Read More

I first heard about this book in the late Nineties. Yes, that would have been in the previous century. After one of Patsy Buckley’s... Read More

“Whatever kind of diner food you’re into is going to be delicious—and also enormous.” Scarlett Johansson is priming... Read More

In early March, I visited the 196th Philadelphia Flower Show. Organized by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, this yearly spectacle... Read More

“The self, in a sense, is all that we have left,” I read recently. It’s a big responsibility. So when I’m feeling... Read More

Nobody did opaque like Andy Warhol. The dark glasses, the sleepy utterances—he didn’t just immortalize the soup can, he... Read More

When I first looked at this year’s slate of new books, I had a feeling 2025 would be a special year for fiction. Four months later,... Read More

Hollywood may have long since retired the knight in shining armor trope as a vestige of the dreaded patriarchy. Even so, here he... Read More

Mubi, the upstart indie film company that made “The Substance” into an Oscar sensation, traces its origins to Tokyo on New... Read More

In this episode of The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, we dive into the rise of two unconventional academic institutions in... Read More

An old musicology professor of mine used to start off his grad seminar with a thought experiment: “If I asked you all — right... Read More

Occasionally American genius favors those with little formal education. Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest minds among the nation’s... Read More