Here are links to a few articles and essays that have caught my eye in the last week or two:

Children Are the Good Life by Roberto Rivera y Carlo. In which Mr. Rivera reveals his ambivalence about the boom in books and movies about autistic children and reminds us that children are an unqualified blessing, whether or not they can shoot a basket.

Theodore Dalrymple says what I’ve always believed about addiction to drugs, but he says it with more authority than I can since he’s a doctor. “Contrary to the orthodoxy, drug addiction is a matter of morals, which is why threats such as Mao’s, and experiences such as religious conversion, are so often effective in ‘curing’ addicts.”

An article on the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe and one author’s attempts to ascertain the details of Poe’s demise.

An excerpt from Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption by Laura J. Miller.