In 2018, Oskar Eustis, who runs the Public Theater, where I advise Shakespeare productions, introduced me to the theater director Kenny Leon. He was hoping to persuade Kenny to direct something for Shakespeare in the Park, and asked me to talk with him. I’m a professor with no acting or directing experience, but I am good at cutting four-hour plays down to size, can explain to actors the difference between thee and you, and have written extensively about Shakespeare’s world.

was the same summer he met my mother.
He and Uncle Max, home from college,worked the family farm, drove cattle
between fields, passed out by a fireafter trading swigs of Old Grand-Dad
from Max’s flask, the night sky lit uplike a marquee, “Kashmir” playing softly
on their portable radio. It was 1975.On off days, he’d drive to Carbondale
and see Dylan or Elton.

Was the sexual revolution a mistake? From the 1960s through today, the majority of feminists would instantly answer “no.” Easier access to contraception, the relaxation of divorce laws, the legalization of abortion, less emphasis on virginity, reduced stigma around unmarried sex—all of these have been hailed as liberating for women.But in the past few years, an emergent strand of feminism has questioned these assumptions.

Americans have long worried that immigrants will take their jobs. Henry Cabot Lodge, who championed restrictive immigration laws as a U.S. senator, described foreign-born workers in 1891 as a “great reservoir of cheap labor” that was “constantly pulling down the wages of the working people.”Emma Lazarus, a contemporary of Lodge, presented a different point of view.

In recent months, orcas in the waters off the Iberian Peninsula have taken to ramming boats. The animals have already sunk three this year and damaged several more. After one of the latest incidents, in which a catamaran lost both of its rudders, the boat’s captain suggested that the assailants have grown stealthier and more efficient: “Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing,” he said.

Joan is an ordinary woman with ordinary complaints. She wishes the coffee at her office tasted better. She thinks her new hairstyle might be a bit much. She loves her fiancé, but worries their sex life isn’t as exciting as it should be. “I feel like I’m not the main character in my own life story,” she explains at a therapy session. When her therapist asks her if she would like that to change, she nods.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.For centuries, human beings feared the sea. “Any 17th-century European pirate could tell you terrifying tales of sea monsters dwelling in the dark waters,” Adee Braun wrote in 2013. “A pirate was about as likely to swim in the sea as a pilot is to jump out of his plane.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 charges against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, accusing it of mishandling customer funds and a litany of other white-collar crimes. It also charged Coinbase, a public company and the biggest U.S. crypto business, with failing to register as a broker-dealer.

For many judicial nominees, a Senate confirmation hearing is one of life’s most grueling experiences—an hours-long job interview led by lawmakers who are trying to get them to face-plant on national television.Not for Aileen Cannon. When the federal judge who will oversee former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial testified in 2020, the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t go easy on her so much as they ignored her.