Essays

Essays

Night Knowledge

What I learned at the club
Aria Aber
A Closer Look

An Unsettling Civil War Photograph

An image from the Battle of the Wilderness
Rachel Eisendrath
Essays

Quiver and Fixity

What I found returning to Thomas Hardy in midlife
Jhumpa Lahiri
Objects of Desire

A Night’s Sleep

An insomniac’s lifelong pursuit
Vincenzo Latronico
Essays

Do You Actually Have to Finish That Novel?

A critic considers the strange moral pressure we feel to read to the very last page
Michel Chaouli
Essays

The Body I Couldn't Abstract

Motherhood reshaped how I see shame, art, and the female body
Megan O’Grady

Browse

Essays

Essay of the Week

No Harm

An excerpt from the winner of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize
Jonathan Gleason
January 13, 2026
Dick Rudisill’s “Ruined Couch,” a gelatin silver print of a cushionless, dirt-covered sofa
Objects of Desire

Loveseat

I threw it away. Then I wanted it back.
Helen Phillips
December 15, 2025
Seamus Heaney surrounded by books at London’s Royal Society of Literature in March 1995
Books

Searching for Seamus Heaney

What I found when I resolved to read him
Elisa Gonzalez
December 15, 2025
Film

Terrence Malick’s Disciples

Why the auteur is the most influential director in Hollywood
Bilge Ebiri
December 15, 2025
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
December 15, 2025
Essays

When Does a Divorce Begin?

Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.
Anahid Nersessian
December 15, 2025
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
December 11, 2025
Essay of the Week

Who Was the Foodie?

What it would mean to take taste seriously again
Alicia Kennedy
November 17, 2025
Black-and-white photo of Susan Brownmiller with a copy of her book Against Our Will
Essay of the Week

The Book That Changed How We Think About Rape

Fifty years on, what lessons endure from Against Our Will?
Claire Bond Potter
November 10, 2025
A still of Ayo Edebiri and Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt
Essay of the Week

What “After the Hunt” Gets Right

I left academia. Luca Guadagnino’s new film reminds me why.
Annie Julia Wyman
November 3, 2025