The chef/writer behind New York City’s Prune revises her original dreams for the restaurant in the wake of closing because of COVID.

My dad was a riddle to me, even more so after he disappeared. For a long time, who he was—and by extension who I was—seemed to be a puzzle I would never solve.

In my naive denial, I had wanted to see him as a hapless ne’er-do-well, a nonconformist with a streak of dishonesty. I liked to think of him as a latter-day Robin Hood. Now I knew that wasn’t true.

When a writer’s daily routine gets out of control.

One morning, as I gobbled my doughnut and slurped my coffee, thinking to myself, "What a fantastic doughnut, what an amazing coffee," I realised that I had not just thought this but was actually saying aloud, "What a fantastic doughnut! What a totally fantastic experience!", and that this was attracting the attention of the other customers, one of whom turned to me and said, "You like the doughnuts, huh?"

What do you do when you think a family member is a murderer? Step one: stop eating her food.

A case of mistaken identity and the incarceration of an innocent man.

Investigating San Francisco’s OneTaste, which promises personal and professional success through the practice of orgasmic meditation.

Adventures in acedia, from Aquinas to Bartleby.

“It took me 32 years to come out. This is what happened when I did.”

Mr. Lindall was the only high school teacher who understood him. Then Mr. Lindall went to jail, and it was his turn to try to understand.

Emily and Kate wanted to have a baby together. They were more successful than they ever imagined.

An attorney pieces together a life cut short.

A month-long tour inside L.A.’s cultish world of wellness.

Where words fail, there is music.

Exploring your subconscious during quarantine.

The author visits the 9/11 Memorial Museum, 13 years after his sister’s death.

On vandwelling in the wake of the Great Recession.

Mardi Fuller grew up in a world of swimming lessons and swim teams because of a mysterious death that haunted her family’s past.

“My Vassar College Faculty ID affords me free smoothies, free printing paper, paid leave, and access to one of the most beautiful libraries on Earth. It guarantees that I have really good health care and more disposable income than anyone in my Mississippi family. But way more than I want to admit, I’m wondering what price we pay for these kinds of ID’s, and what that price has to do with the extrajudicial disciplining and killing of young black human beings.”

“I was never falling-down drunk. I was never belligerent. I always got my work done. I was never unkempt. I was always clean, I was always shaved, I always performed at work. I was always kind and gracious in the dining room. But I lived in hell.”

The author relives her Romanian youth and the imprisonment of her father through the Securitate files kept on her family.

Diagnosed with a rare blood disease, the author reflects on illness and addiction.

On the factories of India and the women whose lives they ruin.

“Everyone on the boat is racist and nice. Including me.”