The Uninhabitable Front

By Morgan BarrySeptember 17, 2026

“Israeli military aircraft flew low over the Lebanese villages of Ras Naqoura and Aita al-Shaab, spraying agricultural fields with a fine mist... Within days, the green of fields, orchards, and olive groves turned brown. Farmers who had worked the same soil for generations watched their trees die.” The post The Uninhabitable Front appeared first on Public Books.

Read article

Literature & Essays

Comments

No comments yet.

“Narrow Escape,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fiction by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in English for the first time: The police lieutenant appeared to be writing down exactly what Gleb was telling him, but relying upon completely different words.

Aleksandr SolzhenitsynSep 27, 202614 min read

Public Books

The Treachery of Machine Realism

“The bombed elementary school in Iran appears to have become a target thanks to satellite imaging. In this case, what the image represented — and to who — was a matter of life and death.” The post The Treachery of Machine Realism appeared first on Public Books.

Morgan BarrySep 23, 2026

Literary Hub

“Ode to a Leaf Blower,” a Poem by Jill Bialosky

Leaves tangled & braided in limp limbs of the still surviving perennials, our yard a battlefield of trees towering at least seventy feet high, squeezing out the sun, & slowly letting go of their dead. I suited up in jeans,

Jill BialoskySep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

Our smorgasbord of sumptuous reviews this week includes Anahid Nersessian on Ashton Politanoff’s Dad Had a Bad Day, Peter Beinart on Akbar Shahid Ahmed’s Crossing the Red Line, Jennifer Wilson on Lars Anderson’s Brady, Sanjena Sathian on Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon, and Jeff

Book MarksSep 24, 2026

The Paris Review

John Berger, Death’s Secretary: A Conversation with Tom Overton

“The first letter I sent to him was about a print that he’d made, which was in the archive—a Chagall-inspired Virgin Mary standing on a donkey.”

Scott SchomburgSep 24, 2026

Public Books

The Last Graduate Students?

“I began writing this as a record of what it felt like to be a student then, as collective attachments to values—long recognized as fraying, with the knell of the next scapegoat, or horrifying spectacle—face the final chopping block: public good, responsibility to others, democracy itself.” The post The Last Graduate Students? appeared first on Public Books.

Imani RadneySep 24, 2026