In the winter of 2021, the Washington-based Pew Research Center conducted a survey of adults in the United States wanting to know who among them had read a book in the past year — or even part of o

“All unjust claims to taxes, rents, and tribute …  nullified … a self-yielding and abundant nature as well as a radically transformed human nature in which greed, envy, and hatred will disappear.”

For Jimmy Kimmel

For John Francis Sullivan Jr.

Walt Whitman appeared in a dream tonight

In front of a mausoleum dressed in sadness

Weeping for the lost soul of America.
 

Uncle Walt! Uncle Walt! I appealed

For Zio Pietro Bonventre

When I saw an essay by Joan Didion in the Dec. 5, 1976 New York Times Book Review called “Why I Write,” I was taken in right away.

For two great teachers:

Arthur Willis and Lydia Tobler
 

In a speech given to the House of Commons in 1948, Winston Churchill issued — the hot breath of war still blowing on the neck of Europe — a warning to the world: “Those who fail to learn from histo

I thought it might be worthwhile for our readers to know that this past Saturday, Jan.

How ironic that, as the tides of our nation’s identity have taken on a darker hue, those with an interest in living in a society, in communities, neighborhoods, and families where people support ea