From a letter by Agafya Lykova, a seventy-year-old hermit living in the Siberian province of Khakassia, to Vladimir Pavlovsky, editor in chief of the Krasnoyarsk Worker newspaper, which published the…
By Muriel Spark, from The Informed Air, a collection of essays to be published this month by New Directions. This essay originally appeared in the Observer, as “Eyes and Noses,”…
By Colin Richmond, from “Deliberation and Precipitation: Fresh Eggs, c. 1890–c. 1910,” published in the Winter 2014 issue of Common Knowledge. Richmond is professor emeritus of medieval history at the…
From a note sent in 1917 to the Appeal Tribunal in Middlesex, England, which reviewed requests for exemption from military service during World War I. The note is included in…
By Nadezhda Teffi (1872–1952), an author of short stories, poems, one-act plays, a novel, and a volume of memoirs. This story was first published in book form, in 1912. Translated…
From a November 25, 1848, article published in the Norfolk News, Eastern Counties Journal and Norwich, Yarmouth, and Lynn Commercial Gazette and included in Purring: Sport of the People, an…
By Gary Indiana, from A Significant Loss of Human Life, one of twenty-two pamphlets published by Semiotext(e) for this year’s Whitney Biennial, which is currently on view at the Whitney…
By Nikil Saval, from Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, out this month from Doubleday. Saval is an editor of n+1.
By William T. Vollmann, from Last Stories and Other Stories, to be published by Viking in July. Vollmann’s last article for Harper’s Magazine, “Life as a Terrorist,” appeared in the…
Discussed in this essay: The Kennan Diaries, by George F. Kennan, edited by Frank Costigliola. W. W. Norton. 688 pages. $39.95. Pity the man’s poor wife. To peruse this generous selection from…
By Barbara Ehrenreich, from Living with a Wild God, out next month from Twelve. Ehrenreich, a longtime contributor to Harper’s Magazine, is the author of many books, including, most recently,…
Ever since the last draft was ended, in 1973, a small but devoted chorus of pundits, legislators, and retired military men have been stumping for its return. These are not…
Estimated value of goods and services distributed for free on the Internet in 2011 : $376,000,000,000 Portion of the content streamed on Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography website, that is viewed on…