Writing English as a Second Language (2009)

Satirist to the Galaxy

How to Live with Dying

Art After the Plague: How painters through the ages have responded to contagion

A Pioneering Appetite

Words Preserved Against a Day of Fear: Remembering Joseph Brodsky

Mysterious Inheritance: A new biography of J.B.S. Haldane

No Ghost in the Machine

Nationalist Anthems: Remembering a time when composers mattered more

Head Cases

He Contained Multitudes

Solitude and Leadership (2010)

35 Over 35

Orwell’s Last Neighborhood

Our Fate Is in the Stars

How did classical music in movies and television become synonymous with villainy

The Devil's Party: On Milton's Lucifer

When conductor and soloist clash, a performance can turn into a contest of wills

Solitude and Leadership (2010)

Idle Hands Are the Dreamer's Tools

Organ Grinding: When the Audience Revolted at Carnegie Hall

Tuskegee Truth Teller

When Beethoven Met Goethe

It’s Complicated: Unraveling the mystery of why people act as they do

Reading Thoreau at 200

Writing English as a Second Language (2009)

On Political Correctness

The New Old Way of Learning Languages (2008)

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

The Lightness of Errol Flynn: In praise of the irresistible swashbuckler

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