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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Is Charm Offensive?
Is Charm Offensive?
The pad Thai was meh, and the fortune cookies a great disappointment. One just said “Behind a successful man is always.” And my husband’s said he would “win over others with his charm.”
I snorted. “That’s so not you.”
Our friends were aghast,…
Recipe Stories: Monkey Meat
Bargoers said aloud by rote, cynically but accurately, “That ain’t no Jimmy Dean,” because whatever the meat was, it was not pork sausage. Everybody called it monkey meat, or mystery meat, which did not diminish patrons’ appetites and in fact sold more skewers due to its mystery.
Brooklyn Band Starts Classical Music Season Early with Collaborative Composition Initiative
This classical music off-season, St. Louis is hosting something of a classical music talent combine for new composers and the creative musicians who perform their work. Let us call the Collaborative Composition Initiative a summery Spring Training for the classical music season to come.
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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.