Essay Death Mournful Creatures By Virginia Morell Humans may be the only animals who understand our mortality, but when it comes to grieving, we are not so unique. More
Essay Food Balanced Diets By Daniel Mason Pica is an unexplainable food curiosity—the overwhelming desire to eat the inedible. More
Essay Sports & Games Wordplay By Simon Apter Sportswriting is a language rich in slang that’s helped create our common culture. More
Essay Medicine Course of Illness By Iain Bamforth Reconsidering an epic of illness—Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. More
Essay Magic Shows Stage Light By Andrew McConnell Stott The life of artist and scenographer Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, and the role of the occult in the history of special effects. More
Essay Comedy Once Upon a Time in the West By Ben Tarnoff How a simple story of a man and his talented frog made Mark Twain a national celebrity. More
Essay The Future Quack Prophet By Colin Dickey The prophecies of Nostradamus were cryptic and garbled—but they also let us see what we wanted to see. More