Second Read
New insights from old books
The Author Who Brought the Montessori Method to Life in Her Fiction
Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s novels took family life and childhood development seriously, glorying in the daily accumulation of small insights and struggles for mastery.
February 27, 2023
The Other Blockbuster Royals Memoir
Before there was “Spare,” there was “The Heart Has Its Reasons” (1956), by Wallis Simpson.
February 25, 2023
What a Sixty-Five-Year-Old Book Teaches Us About A.I.
Rereading an oddly resonant—and prescient—consideration of how computation affects learning.
February 25, 2023
A Children’s Classic with a Refreshing Lack of Lessons
“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” refuses explicit conclusions. That’s the source of its appeal.
January 23, 2023
Allen Ginsberg’s Self-Recording Sessions
In the late sixties, Ginsberg began taping many of his public appearances, as well as his casual and private conversations. He used the recordings to compose his greatest work.
January 6, 2023
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” ’s Voices in the Dark
The Argentinean writer Manuel Puig’s novel-in-dialogue forces the reader to be both director and detective, interpreting how the lines will be spoken and searching each sentence for clues as to what is going on.
December 11, 2022
The Enduring Power of “Scenes of Subjection”
Saidiya Hartman’s unrelenting exploration of slavery and freedom in the United States first appeared in 1997, during the last period of spoiled “race relations” in the twentieth century. Twenty-five years later, it has lost none of its relevance.
October 17, 2022
What a Screen Can’t Capture About Fashion
A 1956 book is a refreshing reminder that there’s more to clothes than how they look.
September 27, 2022
The Feminist Novelist Who Turned “On the Road” on Its Head
In “Tripticks,” the little-known British writer Ann Quin adopted the techniques of the Beats to playfully mock their machismo and deflate the romance of nineteen-sixties drug culture.
August 23, 2022
The Novel That Found Its Melodrama in the Psychoanalyst’s Office
Judith Rossner’s “August,” from 1983, takes its title from the cruellest month—the one when many therapists go on vacation.
August 2, 2022
