Fiction A Sandstone Farmhouse by John Updike. After the death of his elderly mother, the adult Joey returns to the farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania, where she had been born and spent most of her life. Her parents sold the house when she was twelve; she bought it back when Joey was twelve, during the Second World War...

Letter from London by Julian Barnes. A sense of puzzlement & vague betrayal has been widely felt during one of the longest & most Byzantine commercial sagas of recent times: the sale of the most famous shop in England: Harrods. The store is only one of more than 100 owned by the parent group, the House...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Annals of Space THE PLANETARY COMMUNITY PHOBOS-I by Henry S. F. Cooper. ANNALS OF SPACE about the Russian Phobos I and Phobos II space probes, both of which failed before reaching their destination of Phobos, a moon of Mars. In the second week of July, 1988, two unmanned Soviet spacecraft--Phobos I & Phobos II--were launched toward Mars from Baikonur, in...

Books by Edmund Morris.

Comment by Peter Kornbluh. Comment about notebooks which were obtained by the Freedom of Information Act written by Oliver North. Through a lawsuit, two public-interest organizations--the National Security Archive and Public Citizen--have forced the Bush Administration to declassify in full or in part more than 2600 pages of Col. North's personal...

The Talk of the Town Myth by Mark Singer. A talk story about a Baseball Day press conference in Hoboken. Mayor Patrick Pasculli takes the position that Abner Doubleday was a perfectly capable Civil War general but that baseball was invented in another time and place--specifically, on Jun. 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken--by Alexander Joy...

The Talk of the Town Frolic by Wallace White. Talk story about the annual Rites of Spring and Maypole Frolic at the Queens County Farm Museum. The 47 acre farm, in Floral Park, dates from c. 1772; it is thought to be the oldest continuously active one in the state. (There are two other farms in the city--in...

The Talk of the Town Boots by Michael Stern. Talk story about E. Vogel, a boot and shoe shop on Howard Street, one block up from Canal. Founded in 1879 by Egidius Vogel, it is now run by his grandsons Hank and Jack, along with Hank's son Dean. The Vogels explain the challenges of custom fitting boots and shoes...

Poetry Country Fair by Charles Simic. If you didn't see the six-legged dog...

Poetry The Promise by Sharon Olds. With the second drink, at the restaurant...

Poetry One Morning in Early June by Charles Wright. In the skylight it's Sunday...