Letters & Reading

Literary criticism, book reviews, writers and writing, the life of the mind.

A number of Wendell Berry’s novels and collections of short stories sit on a red wooden bookshelf. (Photo by Scott P. Richert)

Letters & Reading

Do This in Memory of Me

Wendell Berry and Catholic fiction

Volumes of Wendell Berry’s essays sit on a black bookshelf. (Photo by Scott P. Richert)

Letters & Reading

Beyond Consilience

Wendell Berry on E.O. Wilson

A man types on a laptop at a wooden desk beside coffee and a notebook. The screen shows a passage about putting an idea into words. (AI-generated image)

Letters & Reading

I Have an Idea

How do I know? I wrote it down.

A young woman’s hand reaches past a silver crucifix to grasp an herbal charm on a dark bedside table. (AI-generated image)

From the Archive

The Devil You Know

Satan, party of one

An AI-generated image of a writer pausing over manuscript pages as the shadow of a mechanical hand falls across his work.

Letters & Reading

Gaslighting Ourselves

If you let AI change the way you write, the machines win.