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November 16 In History 42 BCE: Birthdate of Tiberius, 2nd Roman emperor. The stepson of Augustus reigned from 14 to 37 C.E. A competent general with a sour disposition, Tiberius came to the thrown through the efforts of his pushy mother. Tiberius treatment...

THE FIRST TIME I went to Agi Mishol’s farmstead in central Israel, she did not immediately invite me into her home. Instead, she led me to a huge fig tree growing in the garden and picked a couple of round, green figs for me from one of the lower...

It’s said of the James brothers that William wrote philosophy like a novelist and Henry wrote novels like a philosopher. Something similar came to mind while reading Cynthia Ozick’s essay, “W. H. Auden at the 92nd Street Y” in her new book, Critics,...

Here is the latest Energy News from The New York Times. Nonfiction: Can Love Redeem the Sins of Jonah Lehrer? In “A Book About Love,” Jonah Lehrer says love is defined not by romantic passion, but by a lifetime of steady emotions. Fiction: A New Novel...

When Mary Shelley sat down to write Frankenstein in the early 19th century, scientists had not yet figured out how to synthesize a genome from scratch. They hadn’t cloned sheep or dogs or Arabian sand cats, hadn’t engineered mice with human brain cells...