Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
122
For longtime readers of American book journalism, scrolling through the New York Times Book Review’s just-published list of the 100 best books of the twenty-first century will summon dim memories of many a once-unignorable critical fuss. At one time or another over the past 25 years, some of us felt as if we could hardly […]
6 months ago

Improve your reading experience

Logged in users get linked directly to articles resulting in a better reading experience. Please login for free, it takes less than 1 minute.

More from Open Culture

Watch the Very First YouTube Video, “Me at the Zoo,” Now 20 Years Old

Given the dominance YouTube has achieved over large swathes of world culture, we’d all expect to remember the first video we watched there. Yet many or most of us don’t: rather, we simply realized, one day in the mid-to-late two-thousands, that we’d developed a daily YouTube habit. Like as not, your own introduction to the […]

20 hours ago 1 votes
Hear Alan Watts’s 1960s Prediction That Automation Will Necessitate a Universal Basic Income

One of the most propulsive forces in our social and economic lives is the rate at which emerging technology transforms every sphere of human labor. Despite the political leverage obtained by fearmongering about immigrants and foreigners, it’s the robots who are actually taking our jobs. It is happening, as former SEIU president Andy Stern warns in his book […]

21 hours ago 2 votes
Why Bob Dylan’s Unreleased “Blind Willie McTell” Is Now Considered a Masterpiece

Most Dylanologists disagree about which is the single greatest song in Bob Dylan’s catalog, but few would deny “Blind Willie McTell” a place high in the running. It may come as a surprise — or, to those with a certain idea of Dylan and his fan base, the exact opposite of a surprise — to […]

2 days ago 2 votes
The Very First Coloring Book, The Little Folks’ Painting Book (Circa 1879)

Funny how not that long ago coloring books were considered the exclusive domain of children. How times have changed. If you are the sort of adult who unwinds with a big box of Crayolas and pages of mandalas or outlines of Ryan Gosling, you owe a debt of gratitude to the McLoughlin Brothers and illustrator Kate […]

2 days ago 2 votes
How Scientists Recreated Ancient Egypt’s Long-Lost Pigment, “Egyptian Blue”

Photo courtesy of Washington State University. It’s become fashionable, in recent years, to observe that we live in an increasingly beige-and-gray world from which all color is being drained. Whether or not that’s really the case, all of us still enjoy easy access to a range of colors that nobody in the ancient world could […]

3 days ago 3 votes

More in history

Vintage Posters for The Royal Court Theatre

Founded by the English Stage Company (ESC in 1956, London’s Royal Court Theatre focuses on contemporary theatre. The building on Sloane Square has put on plays since its completion in 1888. The venue truly arrived when on 8 May 1956, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger opened – a play that marks the beginning of … Continue reading "Vintage Posters for The Royal Court Theatre" The post Vintage Posters for The Royal Court Theatre appeared first on Flashbak.

11 hours ago 2 votes
England’s Prison Population Problems

England’s Prison Population Problems JamesHoare Thu, 06/26/2025 - 08:58

21 hours ago 1 votes
8 Myths About the Greek God Ares

Ares was the Greek god of war and battle frenzy. He numbered among the twelve Olympian gods who ruled over the cosmos. While his sister Athena was a goddess of war, representing strategy and temperance, Ares represented battle lust and the horrors of war. He was often followed into battle by his children and […]

2 days ago 1 votes
On The Shortness of Life

Seneca’s Advice for Dealing with Death

2 days ago 1 votes
Who Were the Desert Fathers (& Mothers)?

The Desert Fathers appeared on the Christian historical scene in the third century CE. Saint Anthony is often considered the most notable among them, though he was not the first. The Desert Fathers were committed and dedicated believers who chose an ascetic lifestyle that would express their earnest beliefs. They decided not to associate […]

2 days ago 2 votes