On July 17, 1955, Argonne's BORAX III reactor provided all the electricity for Arco, Idaho, the first time any community's electricity was provided entirely by nuclear energy.

What Did Idaho Have to Do With the Cold War?

The real life history behind the 1961 nuclear accident fictionalized in Andria Williams' The Longest Night.
Samuel Smiles by Sir George Reid, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

Before KonMari and NotSorry, There Was the Samuel Smiles’ Guide to Self Help

Samuel Smiles' 1859 book, Self Help, offered a groundbreaking approach to self improvement.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning Was Both a Celebrity and a Superfan

As celebrity culture developed in nineteenth-century England, authors were at turns celebrated and celebrators of artists they admired. 
Flag of the Klingon Empire

Why We Love to Learn Klingon: The Art of Constructed Languages

Constructed languages like Klingon excite us because they enable us to actively participate in foreign or "alien" cultures. 
The word of the year, face with tears of joy emoji.

Can an Emoji Ever Be a Word?

You might be forgiven for thinking that the merry band of lexicographers at Oxford Dictionaries were trolling us ...
People enjoying their evening on a beach on Honolulu, Hawaii.

Mele Kalikimaka! How To Say “Merry Christmas” In Hawaiian

Translating "Merry Christmas" into Hawaiian offers insight into the language's modest inventory of consonants.
Vida logo

Gender Disparity and Book Reviews: the VIDA Count

The organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts was launched in 2009 to document gender disparity in book reviews.
Deborah Eisenberg, short story writer, New York, NY.

The Stories of Deborah Eisenberg

Two short stories by Deborah Eisenberg.
Cover of "Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village" by Ronald Blythe

The Re-Release of a Classic

A new American edition of Ronald Blythe's Akenfield reminds us why it became one of the founding texts of oral history.
Time is money.

It Turns Out Ordinary Life is Full of Poetry (Metaphorically Speaking)

The metaphor isn't just a literary device; it informs our conceptual understanding of language and the world.