Mona Golabek is a concert pianist. She tells Anne Strainchamps that her grandmother made loving music her parting gift to her daughter.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Maryanne Wolf thinks the dyslexia brain ought to be considered a gift that characterized some of history's leading figures.
Mark Kurlansky tells Steve Paulson that salt made food a tradable commodity and that it inspired revolutions from India to France. Because people have to have salt, governments want to control and tax it.
Richard Weiss tells Steve Paulson why figures like Horatio Alger, Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie are so compelling for Americans, and why we’re unlikely to give up our national optimism.
The French have a curatorial attitude toward their language, but in fact they add new words all the time.
Writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen talks with Steve Paulson about tigers and cranes.
Today, thanks to Black History Month, legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie "Bird" Parker is on our minds.
Michael Dirda won the Pulitzer Prize for his literary criticism in the Washington Post Book World. Among his collections of essays is Classics for Pleasure.
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