The first time Nayara Andrejczyk fired a gun, she fell in love. It was a revolver, handed to her at a Pennsylvania range after years of quiet fascination — years spent in Brazil, where guns were the domain of criminals, police, or politicians, often overlapping categories. “It was like the forbidden fruit,” she said. “In […]
In all the words that have been devoted to the films of Stanley Kubrick, I do not know whether any writer has invoked Gustave Flaubert’s famous injunction to “be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” Yet no 20th-century artist, writer, filmmaker, composer, or otherwise, […]
A while back, I told you about my friend David Pingenot, who, in the late 1960s, left his small Iowa farm town seeking a wider view of the world by enlisting in the Navy. I talked to him again recently, and he laughed even before he started telling me this story. He told me, “This […]
For Americans of a certain age and income bracket, Europe is synonymous with Rick Steves, a one-man travel impresario whose guidebooks and tour groups have introduced the continent to thousands of newcomers. Before he became his own brand, Steves was just another scruffy backpacker abroad, an experience he recounts in On the Hippie Trail, a […]
Books on the politics of literary works can go wrong in at least two ways: They can reduce the significance of a literary work to the politics of its author or time (and great works are always about more than mere politics), or they can read today’s politics back into the original work, saddling authors […]
Peter Matthiessen was a towering figure in 20th-century American letters. He was a naturalist, environmentalist, Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, world traveler, CIA agent, and a mystic. He was one of the first writers to be concerned about the extinction of animal species, the care of the environment, and man’s exploitation of indigenous people. His efforts […]
Fun fact about the New York City Housing Authority: A $2 million graft scam barely touches the surface of its multibillion-dollar dysfunction. The conviction...
In 2013, I moved to the United States from the United Kingdom, and in the years since, I’ve learned that there are really two kinds of American holidays, particularly when genuine religious faith is pushed to the background. There are the loud, commercialized holidays that feel like a national competition over who can buy the […]
