Letters
The Hand Press in a Kansas Barn
On a farm outside Lawrence, Kansas, a 200-year-old iron hand press still prints books. The man who runs it says the press has taught him patience he did not ask for.
Places editor
Sasha Vellis
Sasha Vellis writes long-form travel reporting from off the tourist circuit. She speaks Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, and a serviceable Greek.
Beats
Published in Common Hours
Stories
The Welsh School and What Comes After
Ysgol Bro Hyddgen in Machynlleth teaches every subject in Welsh. A long-running study now follows its graduates into adulthood.
Time
The Sky Over Cordoba: The Forgotten Career of Petronila Astengo, 1842-1919
She published twenty-three papers, mapped seven hundred southern stars, and was the first woman employed by the Argentine National Observatory. The standard histories of Argentine science do not name her.
Profiles
The Bread That Feeds the Monastery
Brother Anselm has baked bread for the same Benedictine community in upstate New York for thirty-five years. He uses the same starter his predecessor handed him in 1991.
Crafts
The Typewriter Restorer of Vila Madalena
In a São Paulo storefront the size of a small kitchen, Mauricio Pessoa rebuilds Olivettis and Olympias with replacement parts he machines on a lathe behind a hanging curtain.
The Trades
The Watchmaker in the Vallee de Joux
A senior watchmaker in a small Swiss village services complicated Patek Philippe movements one tooth at a time.
Nature
The Herons at the Edge of Kuala Lumpur
At a coastal wetland reserve forty minutes from the capital, a population of grey herons and milky storks holds on against the encroaching city, watched over by a Malaysian biologist who has counted them every fortnight for eleven years.
Stories
One Phone Line for Forty Years
In 1984, the village of Salgueiro do Campo in central Portugal voted to share a single telephone. The vote held until last spring.
Places
The 27-Hour Train to Bariloche
From Constitucion station to the lake district of Patagonia, on a train that crosses two-thirds of Argentina at the speed of a country fair.
Letters
The Catalan Dictionary That Took Three Generations
In a village outside Girona, a family began a dictionary in 1923. The grandson finished it last year. He says the hardest entries were the ones his grandfather had already attempted.
Time
The Town That Voted to Leave: Glover, Massachusetts and the Town Meeting of 1947
On a March evening in 1947, a small town in the Berkshires voted 89 to 64 to secede from the United States. The motion was rescinded eleven days later. The minutes survived.
Crafts
The Glove-Maker of Via Chiaia
In a Naples atelier above a pasticceria, Carmela Russo cuts and hand-stitches kidskin gloves for opera singers, surgeons, and the occasional cardinal.
Profiles
The Vet Who Drives Three Counties
Dr. Mara Ellsworth puts almost forty thousand miles a year on her pickup, treating cattle, horses, sheep, and the occasional barn cat across a wide rural stretch of eastern Washington.