A generation that will never have the prosperity of the previous one settles for the next best thing—aspirational housesitting.

Patagonia elevates consumer restraint to an elite form of snobbery.

Todd Haynes’s “Carol” mistakes aesthetics for meaning.

Does Herman Melville’s classic make sense in the internet age?

A new history explores the making and unmaking of the Jewish Catskills.

A new book exposes winners and losers on the new global market for passports.

Tracks on the land, from Texas factory farms and oil fields.

Frederick Wiseman's forty-third documentary takes on the most diverse neighborhood in the world

The protesters at Mizzou and Yale need to be heard, not laughed off.

Death and disappointment stalk a mysterious traveler in Rick Moody’s latest novel.

A new look at New York’s secret workers

Kim Stanley Robinson and the novelists who want to build a better future through science fiction.

Mary Beard writes the people’s history of Rome in her new book “SPQR.”

Why a teenage Instagram star turned against the platform.

Bill Gates is here to change the world—will he make money doing it?

Forever trapped in babyhood, dolls threaten the very essence of life’s possibilities

A new book dissects the meanings of tattoo cultures