This past year’s reading took me across islands and interiors, courtrooms and kitchens, remote landscapes, and tightly bound communities. I was drawn to stories set in places to which I traveled over the past year, to voices reclaiming agency, and to books that sit comfortably with moral ambiguity rather than tidy answers. Alongside literary fiction and nonfiction that grapple with justice, ecology, history, and belief, I returned often to mysteries and series novels that I'v

All expedition voyages start with an itinerary. Few follow it. This month-long journey along the coast of Antarctica was no exception. What began as a voyage of exploration soon turned into something far more urgent—a rescue mission in one of the most remote corners of the world. Antarctica lies at the bottom of the world —or perhaps at the top, depending on how you hold the map. When we set out to travel along the coast, we wondered: which coast exactly? East or west? It tur

At the foot of Mount Parnassus, the old quarter of Harmena in Amfissa still smells faintly of leather and oak. Water runs through stone channels once vital to a thriving trade, and though the hammers have fallen silent in most workshops, one still echoes with the rhythm of human hands. A Family that Endures As I ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant in Harmena, I looked forward to meeting Spyros Merinopoulos , who, together with his father, runs the town’s sole remaining tannery

The Acropolis view — the skyline no law dares to block. A Civilization That Never Really Fell A large component of my journey through Greece was visiting the ruins of ancient civilization. Spanning from the early Aegean period (around 3000–1000 BCE) through the Hellenistic Period (323–30 BCE), Greek culture gradually spread across the Mediterranean and Near East. Its peak came during the Classical Period—the 5th and 4th centuries BCE—before political control passed to Rome. Y

Our van driver carefully wended his way through the narrow back alleys of Amfissa, Greece. We were searching for the workshop of Christos P. Papadimos, known as the last traditional bell maker in Greece. I expected to meet a wizened old man with white hair and a mild stoop. Instead, we were greeted by a lively man in his thirties, surrounded by his three young daughters. Christos shows us a cow bell It was hard to believe when Christos told us he’d been making bells for twent

During my recent voyage to the Scottish Isles, I was amazed by the sheer variety of wildflowers in bloom. Although the iconic heather...

The gatehouse. The Glenapp Castle estate spans around 110 acres, nearly 40 of which are dedicated to formal gardens and woodland. From...

Scenic back roads, a quiet hike, wildflowers in bloom, and a brush with history—our wine-country escape was all about the journey, not...

On March 7, 2025, The New York Times  published something chilling: a list of words and phrases that U.S. government agencies had been...