Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches…
Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches…
Barbara Joans, an iconoclastic anthropologist and feminist who, in her early 60s, became something of a Margaret Mead in black leather, steering her Harley-Davidson deep into a biker culture and producing the 2001 book, “Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, and American Society,” died on March 6 in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 89. The cause of…
Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use. With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves…
The American version of the reality game show “The Traitors,” after the release of its first season on Peacock last year, won an Emmy Award for its casting. The debut season of the whodunit-style competition, in which contestants are eliminated by banishment or by being “murdered,” featured a cast of reality stars and less famous…
In her new video series, the comedian Rachel Coster explores some of the foulest, most unsightly corners of New York City. No, not the grimy sidewalks of Times Square or the platforms of especially smelly subway stations. Ms. Coster trains her critical eye on the squalid apartments of male 20-somethings. Dusty shelves, sweat-stained pillowcases and…
I confess: I refuse to blanch, peel and seed a tomato, even if the recipe says to. Every cook has a fussiness threshold, and that exceeds mine. So when the whole blanch-peel-seed thing comes up in dishes as delightful as Pierre Franey’s sautéed salmon with leeks and tomatoes, I simply cheat and throw unblanched, unpeeled,…
Scientists have long known that a little dirt can be good for you. Research has suggested that people who grow up on farms, for instance, have lower rates of Crohn’s disease, asthma and allergies, likely because of their exposure to a diverse array of microbes. In the 1970s, scientists even found a soil-dwelling bacterium, called…
What should I read before I pack my bags? Nii Ayikwei Parkes’s “Tail of the Blue Bird” brings the city to life. This slim novel is set in Accra and Sonokrom, a small village. Kayo, a forensic pathologist working in Accra, has been forced by a high-ranking police officer to investigate a sinister discovery in…
Last spring, Tia Washington, 52, a mother of three in Dublin, Calif., received a stern warning from her doctor: If she didn’t quickly gain control of her high blood pressure, she was likely to end up in the emergency room. He wrote a prescription for blood pressure medication and urged her to see a health…
