Gypsies have for centuries been simultaneously vilified and romanticized—associated with criminality and dirt, but at the same time with color, magic, and music. Gypsy music is popular around th
From ancient Babylon and the Greek goddess Athena to Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat; from Harry Potter’s Hedwig and the grandiloquent, absent-minded Wol from Winnie the Pooh to Dav
Most of us can’t make it through morning without our cup (or cups) of joe, and we’re not alone. Coffee is a global beverage: it’s grown commercially on four continents and consumed e
In the glorious, boozy party after the first World War, a new being burst defiantly onto the world stage: the so-called flapper. Young, impetuous, and flirtatious, she was an alluring, controversial f
In 2012 writer John Sutherland permanently lost his sense of smell. At about the same time, he embarked on a rereading of George Orwell and—still coping with his recent disability—noticed something pe
