“With people turning a shared release date into a meme-fueled double feature, we rounded up our favorite reads about 2023’s oddest duo.”
life
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Profile of J. Robert Oppenheimer
“‘Operation Joe’ finds our top expert on atomic energy confidently carrying forward his research in the field of pure basic science, where the atomic bomb is only a ‘gadget.'”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘The Sea and Sky Decide What They Will Allow’
“I’m working on a book about Arctic explorers, and that means swimming in a sea of sorrow.”
Posted inCommentary, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Seeding a Dark World with New Life
As she’s done before, Sara B. Franklin greets the specter of death by defiantly planting a life-sustaining vegetable garden.
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘She changed my heart. And that changed my mind.’
“There was so much I could have given her, but it pales in comparison to what she gave me.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Telemetry
After a heart attack (perhaps two heart attacks), Jeff Sharlet searches for meaning in his own mortality, “This brilliant darkness, with which I am coming to terms.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Mysteries of the Universe, Still Out of Our Reach
Cosmology’s hot streak has stalled. Cosmologists have looked deep into time, almost all the way back to the Big Bang itself, but they don’t know what came before it. They don’t know whether the Big Bang was the beginning, or merely one of many beginnings. Something entirely unimaginable might have preceded it. Cosmologists don’t know […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Tamar Adler, in Praise of Small Decisions
I always give people this advice when people ask me how to do things—and it’s not like I’m in a position to advise people on how to do anything. But I feel like we try to make these big decisions, and really we only have to make small decisions, in all moments. I don’t understand […]