An Avian Journey: Dinosaurs to Downtown
October 17, 2017
More by The Common Reader staff
TCR’s Annual “Top Fives”
With two “Notable Essays” selected for inclusion in this year’s Best American Essays anthology, plus landings in top Internet aggregators such as Longreads, 2023 was a banner year for The Common Reader. Here our staff goes one field further, naming five personal favorites published by the journal this year, along with five favorite cultural moments from the wider world of books, film, documentary works, podcasts, and food.
Ten Noteworthy Items About August
Facts, events, and otherwise little-known bits of information that garland the eighth month.
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The Laughter of the Lamas
They say the laughter of the lamas results from relaxing into an acceptance that nothing lasts and that in fact there is nothing but change.
Colorstruck–in Segregated St. Louis
He had me at the name. Richard J. Powell has written a gorgeous book about Black artists and their use of color, and every page leaps up at you, jolting you into attention.
To Vote Where Genocide Is Remembered
The reality of people living together despite their differences now seems so remote that we have forgotten the power and significance of believing in that reality at all. Social media teems with divisive, bigoted rhetoric serving up menus and lists of “others” who are the problem. Ostracism and xenophobia have for years been the currency, if not the corrosive battery acid, of our nation’s political dialogue.
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The Speculative Value of a Stolen Literary Bust
By the time it was gone, the change was subtle but unmistakable: one corner left without its figure, one pedestal left bare. But to understand why that absence matters, it helps to understand who Kate Chopin was and the stories she wrote.
Recipes for Rascals
The ginger nut (and by association other cookies of its type, such as those made with black peppercorns) has an aggressive presence but offers scant sustenance. It is meant to aid digestion of other things, to have a warming effect in winter, to relieve boredom, and perhaps to remind us we are alive in the sometimes dry, husky business of life.
Standing at the Edge of Two Worlds
Having lived in the United States for a few years, I have either struggled to understand democracy in practice or struggled to keep up with it.