Like the old folks who spoke it, Yiddish was dying out. Then Aaron Lanky rented a truck and. . . Mazel tov!
Read MoreLaura Ingalls Wilder grew up in the “little house” but her daughter, Rose, became the story’s midwife.
Read MoreFirst there was Webster, then Twain. But it took Mencken to celebrate how Americans really talk.
Read MoreFrom “Who’s on First” to “A Hard Rain’s a’ Gonna Fall,” from “The Gettysburg Address” to “Green Eggs and Ham,” this delightful anthology lets you hear America talking.
Read MoreWebster had his dictionary but it took an ugly war of words to win its place in American life.
Read MoreBooks were no bargain until a century ago when the Little Blue Books were born. A half billion books later. . .
Read MoreIt was another night in prime time, 1977, and then “Roots” broke the bonds of denial. (As seen in “Roots.”)
Read MoreHer first book made her the “true heir” to Thoreau. But Annie Dillard found new wonders to explore.
Read MoreFor two years, America’s poet laureate reached out to the nation. The nation reached back.
Read More“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking.” — Thoreau
Read MoreWhen Will Durant asked the wise about “the meaning of life,” he got the usual answers. Then he asked a prisoner.
Read MoreFrom a rooftop vision to a counterculture bible, Stewart Brand sowed the seeds of several revolutions.
Read MoreNo verse was too light, no rhyme was too impossible for Ogden Nash.
Read MoreShy and reclusive, he did not want to accept his Nobel in person. But he rose to the podium and lit a candle for humanity
Read MoreReading science fiction, Octavia Butler saw no one like herself. So she vowed to “write myself in.”
Read MoreTurning his back to the continent, Robinson Jeffers offered an answer for our own troubled times.
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