Harper's Magazine

HARPER’S MAGAZINE, the oldest general interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation through such celebrated features as Readings, Annotation, and Findings, as well as the iconic Harper’s Index.

Harper’s Magazine

LETTERS

EASY CHAIR • An Ornament of Our Dingy Office

ENERGY OF DELUSION • By Andrea Barrett, from Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact and Fiction, which will be published next month by W. W. Norton and Company.

WORKS OF SCALE • By Alexis Wright, from “Dream Geographies,” an essay about the writing of her novel Praiseworthy that was published in September in the literary journal HEAT.

FUR AND TREMBLING • From 9-1-1 calls made in September by Patricia Upton, a resident of Kitsap County, Washington.

SECOND OPINIONS • From comments that the British public submitted to the National Health Service in response to a call for suggestions on ways to improve its care.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS • From scientific findings awarded Ig Nobel Prizes since 2014.

A THREE-HOUR TOUR • By Mark Richard, from a reading delivered in November in Richmond, Virginia.

AUTO-DA-FÉ • By Violet Lucca, from David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, which will be published this month by Abrams Books.

FOREST FOR THE TREES • By Daniel Puntas Bernet, from his letter from the editor in the September 2024 issue of Reportagen. Translated from the German by Oscar Dorr.

THE COLD STONE • By Yuko Tsushima, from Wildcat Dome, which will be published in March by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.

MY ONLY SYNESTHESIA • By Brian Blanchfield, from a manuscript in progress.

SIGNATURE MOVE • By Catherine Lacey, from a series of 144-word essays on Untitled Thought Project, her Substack news-letter. This entry was published in October.

WHAT I LOST; WHAT I GATHER • By Mary Brancaccio, from Fierce Geometry, which was published in December 2022 by Get Fresh Books Publishing.

THE GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE • Spotify’s plot against musicians

COPY RITES

THE FOREVER CURE • Is civil commitment rehabilitating sex offenders—or punishing them?

CRACKERS

HELIOPOLIS • Searching for home in the city of the sun

VOICES FROM THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE • On the epistolary life

MOTHER-DAUGHTER STORY

NEW BOOKS

A MAN OUT OF TIME • Dino Buzzati’s accidental realism

FINDINGS