Free Republic

On July 16, “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, will turn 75. Commemorating such a nice big number would surely strike its adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield, as the absolute nadir of “corny,” but maybe we could use a little corn, as the data centers invade our farmland. Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. “Catcher” has somehow inspired artists as...

A black feminist historian whose work is being labeled as misleading — and who may have lost her cushy academic job — says it all comes down to an attack on black women. The New York Times tells the tale of Kerri Greenidge, whose 2022 book “The Grimkes” was hailed for its narrative about a slaveholding family and its work in the abolitionist movement. Publishers Weekly put the book on its list of that year’s top books, while the American Historical Association handed Greenidge the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, which honors scholars in women’s history and feminist theory. But the...

For years, my classmates and I have been taught that rebellion means rejecting everything that came before us. Question authority. Tear down institutions. Challenge traditions. Distrust capitalism. Mock patriotism. Treat faith as outdated, the family as optional, and America as something to apologize for instead of celebrate. That script isn’t rebellious anymore. It is predictable, conformist, and boring. Walk onto almost any college campus, scroll through social media, or turn on Hollywood, and you’ll hear the same message repeated in different forms. America is systemically broken. Capitalism is exploitative. Christianity is oppressive. The nuclear family is obsolete. National pride is...

When you accept Christ, you are justified. However, part of the Christian life is repentance and leaving the old life behind, which is to my understanding sanctification. My question is, as you study the Bible and are trying to align your life with the Bible, does that mean you should change denominations periodically as you find the church you are part of having doctrines that are not in line with the Bible and find a new church that reflects where you are in your current state of growth?

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic (also known as Diogenes of Sinope) could have been the first anarchist, or the first absurdist, or the first satirist, or the first naturalist — depending on the reader’s point of view. By today’s standards, Diogenes was a homeless man by choice whose life goal was the search for wisdom. His unique approach to life had absolutely nothing to do with society’s norms and rules — either now or back in ancient times. He found the shelter he needed inside an enormous ceramic pot, rejecting all comforts and luxuries — yet his observations...

The author's aim was to instruct students of American jurisprudence in the fundamentals of that system. Admirably adapted to the needs of such, his treatise addressed itself to those most ardent of students, practitioners themselves. Hence it soon attained, and since has held, the distinction of the best general treatise on American law. Herein are presented, as parts of an organic whole, the international relations of our government, its constitutional organization, and the legal results flowing from the exercise of its executive, legislative, and judicial functions. Without deviation from its systematic course, the discussion passes from the Union to the...

Gone are the days of university freshmen reading classical philosophers like Plato or contemporary pedagogues like Ta-Nehisi Coates. These days, incoming college students are lucky if they can get through Judy Blume’s “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.” According to a new “Survey of Adult Skills” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a forum for 38 high-income, predominantly Western countries — a not insignificant number of adult students enrolled in higher education are now reading and doing math at a level which, in a more functional society, would be alarming for a middle schooler. The survey,...

Most stories one reads about the legendary sci-fi author Harlan Ellison tend to be about how cranky and/or litigious he was. Harlan Ellison hated Hollywood. The stories about his dissatisfaction with "Star Trek" are legendary, and he often took other writers and/or studios to court, claiming they had ripped off his idea. He once sued the makers of the obscure 1970s sci-fi cop show "Future Cop," and he famously (and successfully) sued James Cameron over "The Terminator." He sued the movie "In Time" for "borrowing" one of his ideas. And in interviews, Ellison remained cantankerous. A notable 1979 interview with...

Hours before Haruki Murakami's new book was set to go on sale in Japan on Friday, dozens of fans gathered outside a major Tokyo bookstore for a special event to get their first copies as soon as the clock struck midnight. “The Tale of KAHO” is the Japanese author's first full-length novel featuring a lone woman protagonist, according to Shinchosha Publishing Co. “Kaho, a picture book author, is just an average young woman. But truly bizarre things start happening around her,” Murakami said in a brief message posted on the publisher’s campaign website. “I wrote this novel as I put...

n his many articles for Tablet and other outlets, Jacob Siegel, a journalist and war veteran, has focused on how rulers and elites use digital tools to calibrate information and control people. His new book, The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control, traces the evolution—from 9/11 to the advent of AI—of a mammoth alliance between government and Big Tech that subverts our constitutional republic and enslaves Americans. According to Siegel, the foundation of the information state is a “whole-of-society” approach to governance that aligns “the most powerful institutions behind the dictates of the state.” Tech platforms, NGOs,...

South Korean police are preparing huge security measures at the airport hosting the arrival of their World Cup football team - after the resigning manager faced a threat to his life. Hong Myung-bo, 57, oversaw a Korean team who won just one game and failed to get out of Group A behind hosts Mexico and South Africa and has resigned after the nation's president demanded an investigation into their poor performance. The situation has now escalated, with the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency announcing they are sending 160 riot and airport police for the return of the national team in Korea's...

“Hardly anybody is still alive today who has personal memories of the Hollywood blacklist of the immediate post-World War II period, let alone of the rabid Communist agitation that took place in the film colony before and during the war,” notes Bruce Bawer in his review of my book, Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry, adding “don’t expect this terrific, truth-telling tome to be made into a major-studio movie anytime soon.” Bawer is right, but as they say in Hollywood there’s more to the story.

John Stockwell, who publicly resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1977, accusing it of deceit and illegality, after a career as a covert operative in Vietnam and Africa, died this month in Austin, Texas. He was 88. .... Mr. Stockwell’s break with the C.I.A. — during a period when several former officers published damning exposés of what was informally known as “the Company” — was public and showy. His resignation letter ran in The Washington Post. He wrote a tell-all book, “In Search of Enemies” (1978), which the C.I.A. sought to suppress. He was interviewed on the CBS news...

Audiobook industry sales revenue grew 9% in 2025, hitting $2.43 billion, according to the Audio Publishers Association's annual sales survey, conducted by Toluna. Publishers reported more than 750,000 active titles last year, a 43% increase from 2024. General fiction accounted for the largest share of audiobook revenue at 27%, with science fiction/fantasy, romance, and mysteries/thrillers/suspense rounding out the top genres. The fastest-growing genres in 2025 were humor, general fiction, and children's, including YA. ... AI-narrated audiobooks remain a marginal interest, representing just 0.03% of sales in 2025. Curiosity about AI-narrated books also appears to be in decline, as those expressing...

The author of a new book about William Shakespeare is claiming that the works of the famed playwright were actually written by a black, Jewish woman. The book, The Real Shakespeare: Emilia Bassano Willoughby by Irene Coslet, argues that Shakespeare was actually Emilia Bassano, a dark-skinned Jewish woman who was an English poet during the Elizabethan period. The Amazon description for the book, which says it is set to be released on March 30, questions if Shakespeare was indeed “a white man from Stratford.” “Debate still rages over the identity of the most beloved poet of all time and ‘father’...

You feel it, most days in Santa Cruz, some more than others, a kind of vibe, a kind of magic in the air, like that feeling just as the fog is burning off and the chill salt air comes alive with an extra tingling energy in the fresh late-morning sunlight. If you take THAT feeling, that giddy energy suffused with possibility, and try to find the living human embodiment, the avatar if you will of Santa Cruz creative energy at its potent and playful best, that avatar has a name, and it’s Wallace Baine. Talk about energy. The man spent...

John Staddon, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, brings unusual precision to a subject that has long been governed more by social convention than by rigorous inquiry in his work, Inevitable Differences: An Inquiry into Human Variation (Academica Press, 2026). His background in experimental psychology and quantitative methods equips him to examine the empirical literature on group differences with a dispassion rarely found in this field. The result is a book that challenges, on both philosophical and empirical grounds, the dominant egalitarian framework shaping contemporary debates on race and inequality.That framework rests substantially on John Rawls, whose...

Yesteryear opens by introducing its narrator, Natalie, a 32‑year‑old influencer who amasses millions of followers by posting about her pioneer‑like lifestyle. Unbeknownst to her audience, staff keep the household running, her marriage is strained, and her children hate being filmed. One day, she wakes up in a place that looks like her home, except it’s the early 19th century. As the story develops, Natalie proves anything but content. She meets her husband, Caleb, at a church group. After they marry, she finds herself pregnant at 20 (and with a husband more of a buffoon than she expected). I left Yesteryear...

In “Communion,” Vance weaves his faith journey, beginning in his childhood, through his recent life changes and with his own policy and cultural views... His account of his faith journey, at times, seems to focus on his return to Christianity more broadly, with Catholicism presented as the variety he chose. “I’m not a particularly sectarian person, and this is not a particularly sectarian book,” Vance said in the book’s opening chapter. Although he said he became Catholic for “what I believe are good reasons,” he credited his Protestant spiritual foundation as a key factor in his journey back to God...

Mayday Health, an organization that promotes at-home chemical abortions, has begun running advertisements for the abortion pill at California laundromats. Key Takeaways: * Mayday Health was formed in 2022 in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with the goal of telling women how to access mifepristone, also known as the abortion pill, even if they live in a pro-life state. * The group has been running ads promoting abortion in pro-life states. * The latest ad campaign from Mayday Health includes ads inside California laundromats. The Details: Though California is an extremely pro-abortion state, Mayday Health has launched...