At some point last year, I read Oliver Burkeman’s productivity book, 4000 Weeks. It was, perhaps, both the most helpful and least helpful productivity book I’ve ever read. Let me...

James by Percival Everett isn’t a ghost story, but it has a similar effect, forcing you to see a well-known tale from a different perspective....

In his Letters to Lucilius, Roman playwright and philosopher Seneca wrote: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” That hits home. Seneca isn’t dismissing or denying the reality of suffering in...