The Continent hungers to be realized. Each day adds a new increment to the frontier,” I said, “and behind that expansion is the flux of towns darkening into cities to be threaded…

In Jasper Fforde’s lighthearted “Thursday Next” series of books, people can use a “prose portal” to enter the world of a book, to change the plot or kidnap a character. The…

In the huge range of different human cultural inclinations, one of the most widespread is a fondness for stories. We just love to get lost in a good book or movie. When we do, we tend…

On July 4, 1776, representatives of thirteen colonies on the eastern shores of North America signed a Declaration of Independence from England. Winning independence was still a bloody…

There are important life events that people tend to remember. Some of them are personal, like your first kiss; others are historical, such as where you were on 9/11. I remember my…

This afternoon, President Obama gave a major speech at Georgetown University laying out his administration’s climate and energy policy. The most notable bit was probably that he’s…

When Italian authorities confirmed Wednesday that James Gandolfini had just died in Rome of an apparent heart attack, many of the US reports fronted the fact that Gandolfini’s body…

1. Unshaven and one bit shortTo death and taxes, Benjamin Franklin’s binary list of life’s certainties, add the expectation that this six-note sequence:  Will continue with this:…

The last customer from the after-bar rush left, leaving a dozen snow-dusted cars scattered across the half-acre lot. These were the folks who’d gotten lucky enough to go home with…

We are all familiar with the concept of insurance. Your home insurance protects you against fires, theft, and flooding. Your car insurance protects against serious accidents—not…