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I am, I suppose, in the Jordan Peterson generation. I was in my late twenties when he rose to success and I was probably in the category of... Read More

I’m not sure that most people look at dating as a math problem, at least not consciously. They’re not swiping through the apps... Read More

About a year ago, I told my brother-in-law that I was turning in a new draft of the book I’d written about us. “It’s... Read More

Time keeps on slippin’ into the future, and the books keep right on coming, no matter what’s going on outside. Want to fly like... Read More

Love drives you crazy. What’s falling in love but losing yourself to someone else, crashing your world headlong into theirs, destroying... Read More

I WALK PAST the organic juicery on Sunset. Its slouching marquee screams “COFFEE: IT’S GOOD AS F*CK,” the exterior... Read More

It is often said that the Humanities are in crisis. If so, this new book by distinguished Roman historian Walter Scheidel should be of... Read More

The opera conjures a vivid collection of types: the diva with the glass-shattering high notes, the divo with the bowel-shattering vibrato,... Read More

Is a novel more like a military offensive, a bout of fatigue, a rule, a church, a diet, an obstacle, a friendship, a child, a world, a stew,... Read More

Sitting to Beyoncé’s left was Rumi, her seven-year-old daughter, tucked under her arm; behind her, Blue Ivy, her 13-year-old... Read More

I’d had some inkling it was coming, and this past Thursday afternoon brought the news I’d dreaded for years—that iconic PBS... Read More

Recently, I was drawn into a vast DM conversation on X with a woman from the USA who told me she was a former OpenAI employee turned... Read More

Movie fans who are tired of superhero epics or kids’ movies often call for more adult fare at the cineplex. Yet I’m not sure... Read More

This all began a little more than six months ago. My three-year-old daughter and I were driving from our house in Washington, D.C., to her... Read More

Twisty summer thrillers, magical romances, a true story of a marriage pushed to the brink and more. Read More

In Sarah Manguso’s 2024 novel Liars, the talented and tireless Jane — a writer and professor as well as a wife and mother... Read More

In the middle of March 1931, Virginia Woolf wrote a polite letter to a woman sixteen years her junior. The recipient, a feminist writer named... Read More

One of the perennial questions of political philosophy is the relationship between man and nature. Is nature fundamentally hostile to life,... Read More

About 20 years ago, a neuroscientist named David Eagleman strapped a bunch of students into harnesses, hoisted them to the top of an imposing... Read More

While visiting a friend in Washington, DC, last month, I was perplexed by the sheer number of premature rainbow flags, logos, and crosswalks... Read More

Thomas Sowell, one of our greatest contemporary economists and social theorists, turns ninety-five years old today. As he celebrates his... Read More

In the novels of André Aciman, characters are rarely burdened with anything so tawdry as an office job. If they do have one, as in the... Read More

Justin Smith-Ruiu is one of the very greatest jewels in the Substack. He is a philosophy professor (currently at Université Paris... Read More

In this post, I’d like to share with you the story of my career as a close reader. I wonder whether your experience is anything like... Read More

We can't fault the Supreme Court for declining to do the work of the political branches in criminal law. Read More

The “I” who is writing this is not a person at all—which is really only a legal and social designation—but an... Read More