IT HAS DEFIED A THOUSAND OBITUARIES, THE region that winds from Virginia to Texas, through the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Smokies to the Delta, past the world’s largest peach, the Astroturf grave of Hank Williams and the gates of Graceland. The “No

PEOPLE WHO READ A LOT, OR EVEN JUST A LITTLE, OFTEN HAVE internal memory banks full of potentially useful facts and quotes, ready to be resurrected brilliantly at a moment’s notice—yet still, in the clutch, most of us are like amnesiac squirrels in w

In South Carolina, season opens the first week of October. A few diehards at camp come at the start and stay till the end, but most of us filter in and out whenever time allows. We drive down, go home, work jobs and sneak back on weekends. For three

IN THE 45 YEARS SINCE PRESIDENT RICHARD Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) into law, conservationists have used the landmark legislation to protect millions of acres of land and bring animals—including the grizzly bear and the American all

IT’S 2050 AND YOU NEVER THINK about going to the gym. While your neighbor gets in a high-intensity interval-training workout in her self-driving car on the way to the office, you unlock a public bike and pedal along miles of a safe, traffic-free path

I FIRST SAW SEVEN SAMURAI AT some small theater in downtown Pittsburgh, and it took me to another place. The writing by Shinobu Hashimoto, who died on July 19 at 100, working with Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni, was so beautiful and poetic and powerf

In this floating city, water soaks every aspect of daily life—from our car-insurance premiums to our music to our fears of the future—but you can go weeks without seeing it. The Mississippi River slouches behind the wharves that line most of New Orle

PRIME MINISTER of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t had an easy time of it lately. Israeli police have recommended bribery charges against him in two cases. In one, he’s accused of accepting cigars and champagne in exchange for political favors. In an

Orange Is the New Black has a flair for reinvention. It premiered on Netflix, five summers ago, as a fish-out-of-water dramedy about a spoiled white woman acclimating to life at a minimum-security prison. But Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) was soon

MEGAN ABBOTT ISN’T AFRAID OF a little blood. Her new thriller, Give Me Your Hand, is soaked in it. The women wear red stockings and “placenta red” lipstick. Mostly, Abbott writes about period blood, a topic that would strike fear in the hearts of mos

“IT IS THE COLDEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR,” BEGAN ONE OF Jonathan Gold’s 2006 reviews, “and I am driving along Olympic Boulevard in East Los Angeles, ravenously hungry, looking for one of the itinerant flame-throwing taco carts that sprout in that neighbo

Destruction after Laos dam fails At least 26 people died in southeastern Laos after a billion-dollar hydropower dam collapsed while under construction on July 23, flooding seven villages. Environmental groups have warned about the rapid pace of dam

Doe’s Eat Place, the restaurant founded in 1941 in my hometown of Greenville, Miss., has reached legendary status among foodies the world over for its superlative steaks cooked on a mammoth open broiler, its hot tamales (which bear little resemblance

BEFORE INTERNET CAT VIDEOS, before flip phones, before Beyoncé could talk—let alone sing—there was Tom Cruise. A nuclear blast might kill him, but don’t be so sure. He’s as enduring as the pyramids, and just as impressive. Yet even people who don’t c

STRAIGHT WHITE MEN IS DISTINGUISHED BY SEVERAL notable firsts. It’s the first Broadway play written by an Asian-American woman. (What took so long?) It’s heartthrob Armie Hammer’s Broadway debut. (More please.) And it likely marks the first appearanc

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS WAS CUT IN HALF BY something called a Tronc. That sounds like the sort of thing you’d find in a tabloid, and there it was in the July 23 edition of “New York’s Hometown Newspaper” on page 2: “News cuts staff. Half laid off in

CUBA IS SET TO TURN THE PAGE ON decades of communism, after lawmakers approved a rewrite of its 42-year-old constitution that would fundamentally reshape the island’s government, society and economy. But although the document removes a national goal

On race days we were slammed at Holly Farms Fried Chicken, the fast-food restaurant in North Wilkesboro, N.C., where I started working on my 16th birthday. Usually business was painfully slow, and I spent long, hot evenings after school in my brown a

WITH BAD GUYS HOT ON THEIR HEELS, Jersey girls Audrey and Morgan take momentary cover in the bathroom of a Vienna train station. Audrey turns to leave—their lives depend on catching the next train to Prague—but Morgan has something urgent to say. Her

IN GIOVANNI BONAZZON’S PAINTINGS, Venice is a vision of serenity. Bridges arch gracefully over rippling canals, sunlight bounces off flower-filled balconies, and not a single human mars the tranquility. Bonazzon’s daily vista is not as tranquil, how