In the Los Angeles area a community of observant Jews wants to bring picnic baskets to the beach on Saturdays Surprisingly this has put them at odds with both the Sierra Club and the staff of the California Coastal Commission According to Talmud a Jew may not schlep anything outside his home on

Early Christian literature both Greek and Latin tells us that there is a long history of Christian women living in celibate communities of prayer and service By the end of the fourth century at least such communities were not unusual and through the Middle Ages in the West womens monastic est

The two key words in the title of David Mamets new book Bambi vs Godzilla On the Nature Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business are movie and business The screenwriter and director hates the businessor what passes for business but is really the struggle for poweraspect of making movies So

As soon as I began to read the very first of these poems by John Hennessy ldquo Signing the Kills rdquo I had to get out a map of the New Jersey shore to find where the Rahway River emerges across from Staten Island and along the Arthur Kill Then I needed the dictionary to inform me that ldqu

A review of Philip Jenkins's book on Europe and Islam

Alice Munro is at the height of her powers as a short story writer in this collection, navigating with extraordinary agility the border between memoir and fiction.