From the Archive Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day.

From messages sent to NASA’s “Ask an Astrobiologist” Web page. David Morrison, who responds to the questions, has received more than 5,000 messages related to “Doomsday 2012” and the planet… ...

From complaints submitted to the City of Reno, Nevada, last year. One night this summer I was walking with my wife and two friends from out of town. We witnessed… ...

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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I led a virtual discussion of War and Peace, with the thought that someone else might enjoy reading the novel with me. Three thousand people ended up ...

Lewis H. Lapham’s correspondence with Henry Kissinger can be read here. Lewis H. Lapham wanted to be remembered as a literary ...

The AARP stands for nothing. In 1999, the group announced that its four-letter initialism, which for more than forty years had denoted the American Association of Retired Persons, would thenceforth ...

From Mysticism, which was published last month by New York Review Books. “Mysticism” is the word for what we modern, critical philosophers are meant to distrust in the name of enlightenment. It is all ...

From the introduction to a new edition of By Night in Chile, a novella by Roberto Bolaño that was published in 2000 by Editorial Anagrama. The book was translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews and ...

From Mourning a Breast, which was published in July by New York Review Books. Translated from the Chinese by Jennifer Feeley. Every fall, my friends and I get together to admire the lanterns of the ...

From Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, which will be published this month by Doubleday. Rebecca was an unusual White House inhabitant for two reasons. The first ...

I’ve written in many places, some wonderful, others makeshift or uncomfortable. I’ve written on trains and in hotel rooms, at ergonomically perfect desks and on laptops balanced on my knees. I once ...