Ben, Author at Common Reader

Take a Hike

Hiking feels as sacred as church, carrying me into a pristine wilderness. But it also requires me to do what I am terrible at: pay attention to the physical, sensory, concrete world around me.

Sports | Dispatches

David Brooks Wants Us to Take Our Conversations Deeper

By Jeannette Cooperman

His talk won the kind of sustained applause that brings soloists back for an encore. In his version, this meant Q&A. How, as a nation, can we get past all this pain?

Belief | Dispatches

When Childhood Trading Cards and History Lessons Collide

By Ben Fulton

Art Spiegelman, the force behind both Wacky Packages and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus,” is that rare artist who knows great art may disregard the precision brush strokes of attempting “the masterpiece.”

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Notes on Black Americans, Jews, and Israel

By Gerald Early

People are always trying to find ways to get out from under their guilt. Is the Palestinian simply a tool for Europe, for guilty White westerners, to get out from under the guilt they feel about their persecution of the Jews? If that is true, it is too bad for Palestinians and worse for Jews. Neither is human in this scenario. Blacks, because of our experience, should bear that in mind even more so than other Americans might.

Uncategorized | Essays

Where’s Waldo Now?

By Jeannette Cooperman

Waldo accrued rather a lot of wisdom in his travels. His books teach us to pay attention, if we want to spot the hidden details of the universe.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Disappointment and Horror

By John Griswold

We expect to get our way and often think we will get away with cheap and easy and quick. Nowhere is this more obvious than with food.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Why Lessons in Chemistry Reduced Me to Tears

By Jeannette Cooperman

Some griefs, like my overreaction to “Lessons in Chemistry,” overlap with our own past hurts.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat” Is the Best Halloween Song You Have Never Heard

By Ben Fulton

“The Mercy Seat” is a five-minute tour of a death-row inmate’s dirge and final thoughts before death by electric chair pits an ancient Old Testament object against New Testament teachings, turns everyday objects into hallucinations, and laughs at the idea of knowing truth from falsehood, or justice from mercy, when faced with death.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

By John Griswold

Shepherd’s Centers is a network of fifty-seven affiliate chapters across the country that offers some 165,000 people “services such as transportation, handy helpers, friendly visits, grocery shopping, and respite care to help older adults remain living in their own homes and communities.”

Arts & Letters | Dispatches

On Losing One’s Letters and One’s Mind

By Jeannette Cooperman

These are tiny disturbances of the domestic sphere, brief incursions of chaos. They remind me of the finite limits of our budget, my patience, and my life span.

Arts & Letters | Dispatches