Readings

'Freedom Is An Easily Abused Word': An Interview with Sarah Bakewell

Lines of inheritance and anxiety of influence at the Existentialist Café. 

The First Time I Heard 'When Doves Cry'

When Prince died, I found myself instantly transported back to that day in 1984 when I realized just how big music could be, how much it could contain.

'I Have No Excuses': An Interview with Richard Linklater

The director takes the optimism of youth—the idea that a better world is right around the corner—as seriously as his young characters deserve.

The Khal's Speech: Talking to the Linguist from Game of Thrones

The man who developed Dothraki and Valyrian on conjuring culture with words.

Everything We Can't Describe in Music

The terroir of sound, timbre’s role has always been underrated, or even ignored, because it's so intangible.

The First Time I Watched a Bollywood Movie

My fair-play attitude towards enjoying any genre of film has one notable exception.

Climbing Mount Sontag

Reading her work is the most pressing unfinished business of my career as a writer, yet I’ve avoided it for fear that witnessing its brilliance would reflect back my inferiority.

‘Following the Intensity of Signals’: An Interview with Alissa York

The author of The Naturalist on boating the Amazon, the freedom to pursue instincts and killing things to look at them more closely. 

A Grief Like This

To be newly pregnant is to feel uniquely unsafe. Here is one way to fall in love with an idea.