The Tie That Binds

Anatomy of Influence

By The Common Reader staff and contributors

The delight and danger of swaying others

Flying Home

By The Common Reader staff and contributors

Notes on the skies of America

The Matter of First Ladies and Why First Ladies Matter

By The Common Reader staff and contributors

Three on a Match, or How the Other Two Die

By Jeannette Cooperman

Though their lives wound up linked, these three men could not have been more different. Perry Smith was as poor as used-up dirt. Truman Capote sparkled like diamonds and partied with stars: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra…. Philip Seymour Hoffman landed in the shy middle, living off his talent as simply as one can in New York. What they shared was a sensitivity too raw to hide, and pain that sent them running.

Inside the Crafted and Creepy Culture of Dolls

By Jeannette Cooperman

The tradition is an ancient one: long before people even learned to write, they were spontaneously crafting dolls from papyrus, straw, wood, leather, or etched stone, bone, or ivory. Along the way, there were dolls of rubber, papier mâché, glued sawdust, and always, stuffed cloth—first dressed in simple rags, later in satin and lace. Dolls became elaborate, became art. But all that really mattered was a limbed body with a suggestion of face.

Recipes for Rascals

By John Griswold

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.