Stories by samclemens

Why Exaggeration Jokes Work

How a Fictional Racist Plot Made the Headlines and Revealed an American Truth

The Multiverse Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be in ‘Come with Me’

The Case of Agatha Christie

Maya Angelou’s cookbooks are a rich part of her literary legacy

The Last Days of Rookie

Built to Last: John McPhee's Way of Seeing

How a Successful Biographer Became a Forger (2008)

The Forgotten Legend of Silicon Valley’s Flying Saucer Man

Uncivil Civility: A literary fight club (1858)

Oscar Wilde’s Radical Wit

All of Life Is Creation: Jack Kerouac’s Art

The Double Battle: Frederick Douglass’s Moral Crusade

What’s the Most Influential Book of the Past 20 Years?

Telegraph operators were first to know news of the Civil War

Finding a Lost Strain of Rice, and Clues to Slave Cooking

The Greatest Use of Life: On William James

The Screenwriting Mystic Who Wanted to Be the American Führer

Why the novel matters in the age of anger

What we can learn about trade policy from a misbegotten 19th century effort

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