Nonfiction

Essays

When Does a Divorce Begin?

Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.
Anahid Nersessian
Books

Vanity Fair’s Heyday

I was once paid six figures to write an article—now what?
Bryan Burrough
A Closer Read

Taking Offense

Reading through bad feeling
Garth Greenwell
Dan Fox as a child with his nain, or grandmother, in the chicken-filled yard of Siambr Wen, near Llanrwst, North Wales, UK
Essays

What Happened When I Began to Speak Welsh

By learning my family's language, I hoped to join their conversation.
Dan Fox
Sepia toned photograph showing painter Joan Mitchell behind a canvas in her studio
Essays

The Unfolding of Time in Paint

My encounters with Joan Mitchell's panels
Rachel Cohen

Browse

Nonfiction

A painting of a woman reading at a table.
From the Archives

How Should One Read a Book?

Read it as if one were writing it
Virginia Woolf
September 1, 1926
From the Archives

The Novels of Virginia Woolf

E. M. Forster
April 1, 1926
From the Archives

Scholarship and Literary Criticism

Albert Feuillerat
January 1, 1925
From the Archives

The American Democratic Ideal

Brooks Adams
January 1, 1916
From the Archives

The Powers of the President

William Howard Taft
October 1, 1914
From the Archives

Literary Criticism in American Periodicals

Bliss Perry
July 1, 1914
From the Archives

A Jane Austen Letter with Other “Janeana” from an Old Book of Autographs

M. A. De Wolfe Howe
Letters

Niki de Saint Phalle's Inner World

A selection of the French artist's letters
Nicole Rudick
Ideas

The All Play No Fun Economy

How did we end up teetering between euphoria and exhaustion?
Jessikah Díaz
A portrait of Heaney O Connor

The Impact of Translation

Seamus Heaney