Running
Story Stream
The Paradox of the Distance Runner September 19, 2024
I still remember my first long run. I was 19, home from college, and it was one of those perfect summer days: bright and blue and not too humid. When I got to the end of the trail, my typical turnaround point, I decided, on a whim, to continue. I add...
To the Woman Who Trashed Me on Twitter September 17, 2024
Back when Donald Trump was last running for election, as the Great Awokening made its speech-chilling sweep through the American media, a small number of writers and public intellectuals admitted to not being entirely onboard with the new orthodoxy o...
How Historical Fiction Redefined the Literary Canon September 16, 2024
On Friday, the judges of the National Book Awards will announce the long list for this year’s prize for fiction. On Monday, the Booker Prize jury will winnow their own long list down to just six finalists. And while betting on literary prizes is some...
Circumnavigating the Regal Void September 13, 2024
Queen Elizabeth II was only ever spotted running in public on two occasions, or so Craig Brown alleges in his biography of the late monarch A Voyage Around the Queen. The first was in 1954 when her horse Aureole won at Ascot; the second, nearly four ...
Vivienne September 12, 2024
Vesta Furio is grinding her teeth as she often does in the deep sleep hour before waking. Franz, whom her father named after the artist Franz Kline, sleeps beside her, and the crepuscular sounds emanating from her mouth stir him awake. He leaves the ...
WH Auden’s Visions of England September 12, 2024
Edward Mendelson, WH Auden’s literary executor and editor, has called Nicholas Jenkins’s The Island “a Copernican revolution” in studies of the great poet. It’s a big claim, and for the first few dozen pages it looks as though it might be an exaggera...
Celebrating the Centennial of the Most Underappreciated American of Our Time September 06, 2024
The following essay is adapted from the recently released book Lessons in Liberty: Thirty Rules for Living from Ten Extraordinary Americans (HarperCollins) September 7th marks the one-hundredth birthday of one of the most extraordinary and inspiring...
Pundit Don't Preach September 06, 2024
It has become a truism to say that “everything is political.” But being obsessed with politics is not the same thing as being good at thinking politically. It is striking, in fact, how many political discussions are conducted in essentially judicial ...
Language and Leonard Michaels September 05, 2024
All that great writing, trapped in mediocre books! —Elif BatumanCatachresis leads to anthropophagy. —David Bentley HartOrdinary people have a right to feel harassed when their language is criticized. We have grammar school for that kind of thing afte...
Jeff Pearlman's Very Entertaining 'Showtime' September 02, 2024
The “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s always seemed so happy. This was particularly bothersome to me as a Boston Celtics fan growing up in the Los Angeles area. It seemed the Lakers of that era were more than good. They were harmonious. How ...
