The Big Idea #5: Oliver Sacks
A little over a year ago, I had surgery to repair a bad fracture of my right shoulder. Though the injury was anything but psychosomatic, I was surprised by the intensity of its psychological impact on...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #6: Carl Hart
Once, in Baltimore, in the 1980s, I tried to get out of jury duty.The case concerned a street corner crack cocaine deal, and the judge asked those of us who’d been selected as potential jurors to...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #7: Fady Joudah
When I studied English at college in the 1970s, the New Criticism, a school of literary theory first established in the 1920s, was still the rage. The New Criticism holds that it isn’t necessary to...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #8: Rebecca Mead
Even on a rainy December day, London’s Highgate Cemetery tempts the smart-phone photographer. It’s hard to leave without a shot of the weirdly gigantic bust of Karl Marx, who’s buried there, or of the...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #9: Roz Chast
“Old age ain’t no place for sissies,” my mom used to say, quoting Bette Davis. Sometimes I felt like responding, “Yeah, and taking care of your elderly mother isn’t that much fun, either.”My father and...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #10: Eula Biss
The cover art for Eula Biss’s new book, On Immunity: An Inoculation, surprised me at first. I’d expected something stark and edgy—maybe a shiny hypodermic needle against a blank background—to...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #11: Mark Bittman
Once, I knew what to eat. As a child, I ate what my parents ate, which was more or less what their parents ate, which was more or less what their parents ate. As each generation became more prosperous...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #12: John Freeman
I’m afraid to fly. Correction: I’m afraid to take off. Those seconds when the plane speeds down the runway and impossibly, unreasonably levitates into thin air terrify me. After that, I’m okay (okay,...
View ArticleThe Big Idea #13: Dawn Tripp
Once, in the 1970s, Gloria Steinem appeared at the door of Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in New Mexico bearing a bouquet of roses. O’Keeffe turned her away. O’Keeffe, whose most famous paintings are...
View ArticleThe Big Idea: Bill McKibben
Many felt disappointed by the results of the 2016 presidential election, but how must Bill McKibben have felt? McKibben, a journalist and environmental activist, introduced the term “global warming” to...
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