Featured
In deep winter
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. • Samuel Beckett, Irish novelist, short story writer, and playwright Birds don’t sing in [...]
Discovering English literature
As a child, columnist Aldo Magagnino, discovered the pleasure of books, and then, during his university days, he found his way into English literature.
Film Review: “RRR”
To a lot of westerners, some Bollywood movies appear too over-the-top, too sensationalized, too bombastic, too whimsical, too clichéd. But that’s even more reason [...]
Boyhood Empire
Boyhood Empire: An Introduction
In a new column, Christopher Winner reminisces about his childhood and youth. The 40-odd sequence of essays will appear at intervals under a home page logo.
1. Memories of Truancy: Mr. Major and His Minor
This much I know for sure, no tricks or embroidering: I arrived in Washington, D.C. from France toward the end of 1957. At the [...]
2. Memories of Truancy: Pencils
Every six months, in another epoch, my parents would pin me gently to the scribbled wall and mark how much I’d grown of late. [...]
3. Memories of Truancy: High-heeled Math
Just around the corner from the pencil marks were a flight of stairs that led to the second floor—in my mind, the floor above [...]
In Case You Missed It
A day in the life
January 15, early morning: Queer, sullen days in the city of sun, whole rows of them, their darkness casting a [...]
Discovering English literature
As a child, columnist Aldo Magagnino, discovered the pleasure of books, and then, during his university days, he found his way into English literature.
Film Review: “RRR”
To a lot of westerners, some Bollywood movies appear too over-the-top, too sensationalized, too bombastic, too whimsical, too clichéd. But [...]
Once upon a shoe
When I lived in Rome, I occasionally strolled through the fancy shopping streets near Piazza di Spagna. Mostly, I window [...]
On Christmas carols
The day was a cold one. The rooftops on Main Street in Flers, the town where I attended high school, [...]
Five stages of Christmas grief
At first, I didn’t believe it. One day I was arguing with my mother-in-law about where you place soup spoons [...]
A traveler’s advice
I have celebrated Christmas in seven states and seven countries. Sadly, my family is now gone, wife and child, a [...]
Fiction: “I Found Out, 3”
The penny-wagon worked its way up past Central Park West, before heading over to the Baptist Church on 79th Street. [...]
Household diplomacy
When I was in college, I briefly considered a career in diplomacy. I’d never taken a political science course, and [...]
Toward the revival of diplomacy
A war is child’s play with morosely adult consequences. A bully tries to snare a weakling as a means to [...]