It is a matter of necessity or a choice freely made; a burdensome condition or a vintage-Polaroid fantasy: to live in a van.

The only letter I’ve ever sent to the New York Times was in the 1980s, objecting to the paper’s suddenly pestilent use of “draconian.” During Iran–Contra the complaint must have seemed trivial; the ...

EXT. 8TH STREET—LATE AFTERNOON (C. 1959). CAMERA IN NONSTOP MOTION is on the shoulder of a young man, late teens, intently walking west on a busy Greenwich Village thoroughfare. Under one arm, he’s ...

We will never know how many died during the Butlerian Jihad. Was it millions? Billions? Trillions, perhaps? It was a fantastic rage, a great revolt that spread like wildfire, consuming everything in ...

Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in U.S. and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala, translated by William Savinar. Vanderbilt University Press. 206 pages. $34.95. The Dope: The Real History of ...

When the crow whisperer appeared at the side gate to Adam Florin and Dani Fisher’s house, in Oakland, California, she was dressed head to toe in black, wearing a hoodie, gloves, and a mask. This was a ...

When I was growing up in Los Angeles, I didn’t call myself “Latino,” and neither did anyone else I knew. My father was born in a verdant village in Guatemala’s banana-growing region; my mother was ...

My wife, Heidi, and I put up a string of Christmas lights early in the pandemic. They were LEDs that slowly flashed different colors, hung along a copper wire that stretched above our windows. As 2020 ...

Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen. Liveright. 576 pages. $40. In the 1630s, the powerful Pequot Confederacy of southern New England found itself beset by ...

Writing about “Woke” has at least two pitfalls. One is that any criticism of its excesses provokes accusations of racism, xenophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or white supremacy. The other problem is ...

The Childhood of Jesus, by J. M. Coetzee. Penguin Books. 288 pages. $16. The Schooldays of Jesus, by J. M. Coetzee. Penguin Books. 272 pages. $16. The Death of Jesus ...