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Best New Yorker Articles of 1976

Explore 52 featured picks from The New Yorker's 1976 issues.

52 picks · 52 issues · Top author: Henry S. F. Cooper (4)

Most featured section: Fiction

Featured Picks

NEW PARADIGMS
· Profiles · January 5

PROFILE of Michael Murphy, who with Richard Price, founded the Esalen-Institute in Big Sur, Calif, in 1962. In 1967 they began a San Francisco office, now …

The Captain's Son
Peter Taylor · Fiction · January 12

The writer tells the story of his siter's. marriage, which took place in 1935 in Nashville, Tennessee. She married a wealthy man from Memphis, Tolliver…

Varieties of Exile
Mavis Gallant · Fiction · January 19

Fiction, from 1976: “What I craved at this point was not love, or romance, or a life added to mine, but conversation.”

THE STAR AND THE CHORUS
Lis Harris · A Reporter at Large · January 26

REPORTER AT LARGE about Nell Fox, one of the best-known terrier breeders in the U.S. She is in her late sixties and has spent some 20 years trying to …

ENERGY-I
Barry Commoner · A Reporter at Large · February 2

REPORTER AT LARGE about the energy crisis. Begins with discussion of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and how they can be applied to determine …

The Relentless Movement of “Taxi Driver”
Pauline Kael · The Current Cinema · February 9

Pauline Kael’s 1976 review of Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver,” starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.

ENERGY-III
Barry Commoner · A Reporter at Large · February 16

REPORTER AT LARGE about inefficient uses of energy and its economic ramifications. Tells about how the crisis in the U.S. Economy is a result of production…

SOME SPLENDID AND ADMIRABLE PEOPLE
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · February 23

PROFILE of the American Academy of Arts & Letters & the National Institute of Arts & Letters, located on Broadway, between 155 & 156 St. on Audubon …

Bird
Whitney Balliett · Jazz · March 1

Whitney Balliett on the brilliance of the jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker.

Exceprt From The Ginsberg Book of Non-Records
F. P. Tullius · Fiction · March 8

Ten excerpts with headings such as: The Slowest Hundred Yard Dash; The Least French Fries Eaten At One Sitting; The Shortest Song Ever Written; The Least …

The Confident Man
Richard Sacks · Fiction · March 15

Brian's 88 year old step-grandfather, Ike, lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with Brian's grandmother, Frieda. Brian and his wife of two years, Rhea, …

THE INVANDRARE
· Profiles · March 22

PROFILE of Predag Ilic (fictitious name), a Yugoslav migrant worker in Sweden. He lives with his wife Darinka & their 3 children in a Swedish factory town …

Naughty Bits
Hendrik Hertzberg · Onward and Upward with the Arts · March 29

Hendrik Hertzberg on their quixotic battle to stay off network television.

Voices Lost in Snow
Mavis Gallant · Fiction · April 5

Fiction, from 1976: “Asking questions was ‘being tiresome,’ while persistent curiosity got one nowhere, at least nowhere of interest.”

WLT (The Edgar Era)
Garrison Keillor · Fiction · April 12

Two brothers, Edgar and Roy Elmore, opened Elmore's Court restaurant in 1919 in Minneapolis. They served six sandwiches and were immensely popular with…

Prince Philip Will Not Be Stereotyped
George W. S. Trow · Fiction · April 19

Prince Philip has started an interior-decorating firm in his continuing efforts to express himself in his own way and not rely on his wife's fame for …

Largely An Oral History Of My Mother
Harold Brodkey · Fiction · April 26

Story about the writer's early life as the adopted child of Jewish parents in a Midwestern town. He recalls his mother in her younger years, when she …

THE KEEL OF LAKE DICKEY
John McPhee · A Reporter at Large · May 3

REPORTER AT LARGE about a 100-and-some-mile canoe trip down the St. John River in northern Maine. In late spring, Mike Moody, John Kauffmann, Tom Cabot, …

MAHATMA GANDHI AND HIS APOSTLES I-SUBTLER AND MORE LASTING SHAPES
Ved Mehta · Profiles · May 10

PROFILE of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma, meaning "great soul" was an honorific title). Writer travelled through India & to other places, beginning …

MAHATMA GANDHI AND HIS APOSTLES II-IN THE STEPS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHER AND HIS BIOGRAPHERS
Ved Mehta · Profiles · May 17

PROFILE of Gandhi. Tells about his early life in India; his education as a lawyer in England; his involvement with the vegetarian movement there; his …

MAHATMA GANDHI AND HIS APOSTLES III-THE COMPANY THEY KEEP
Ved Mehta · Profiles · May 24

PROFILE of Gandhi. Gandhi took the vow of brahmacharya, or celibacy, which among Hindus is considered the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, the surest way of…

Swine Flu Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Richard Leibmann-Smith · Fiction · May 31

History was made last week at the annual Academy Awards night, when for the first time a single disease captured virtually every major prize given by the …

THE MOODS OF A STONE
· Profiles · June 7

PROFILE of Tatyana Grosman whose workshop, Universal Limited Art Editions, in West Islip, L.I. produces fine lithographic prints. Her venture began in 1957…

JERUSALEM JOURNAL
Francine du Plessix Gray · A Reporter at Large · June 14

REPORTER AT LARGE about Israel. Writer and her family stayed in an apartment in Mishkenot Sha'anamin, a residential complex for artists & writers. …

A Resonance with Something Alive~I
Henry S. F. Cooper · Profiles · June 21

PROFILE of Dr. Carl Sagan, professor of astronomy at Cornell and the most ardent advocate of life on Mars. Dr. Sagan will be on the imaging team, whose …

A Resonance With Something Alive~II
Henry S. F. Cooper · Profiles · June 28

PROFILE of Dr. Carl Sagan, the controversial Cornell professor of astronomy who believes there is life on Mars and is a member of the imaging team of …

THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCY
E. J. Kahn · A Reporter at Large · July 5

REPORTER AT LARGE about the British press in 1776, especially the news about America. Gives opinions on the government's policies, eyewitness reports …

More Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions
Veronica Geng · Fiction · July 12

Descriptions by the writer of several games. She says, in desdribing the game called Seven Bugs, that one of the classic mathematical fallacies was …

From The Journal of a Leper
John Updike · Fiction · July 19

The writer, who keeps a journal, is a leper. He earns his

HANDGUNS
Richard Harris · A Reporter at Large · July 26

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the National Council to Control Handguns -- established in January, 1974, thus setting up the first national handgun-control …

Kikimora
Jean Rhys · Fiction · August 2

In 1938, in London, Baron Mumtael, a newly naturalized Englishman, comes to dinner at Elsa's and Stephen's. He is a small, fair, plump young man …

Sy Pringle's Summer Menu
Mark Singer · Fiction · August 9

Writer parodies press releases for films. In a memo, Sy Pringle, of Out-To-Lunch Films, Inc., lists the company's new summer releases, all of them …

Drowning 1954
Garrison Keillor · Fiction · August 16

In 1954, when the narrator was 12 years old, his cousin drowned in Lake Independence. The narrator's mother made him take swimming lessons at the Y in …

The Moslem Wife
Mavis Gallant · Fiction · August 23

In the South of France, Netta Asher's family held a 100-year lease on the Hotel Prince Albert and Albion. Netta took over the hotel in her father's…

LIFE IN A SPACE STATION-I
Henry S. F. Cooper · A Reporter at Large · August 30

A REPORTER AT LARGE about living conditions in the space station. Skylab. Skylab, built by NASA, was launched from Cape Kennedy on May 14, 1973 and the …

LIFE IN A SPACE STATION-II
Henry S. F. Cooper · A Reporter at Large · September 6

A REPORTER AT LARGE about living conditions in the space station, Skylab. The third crew to live in Skylab stayed the longest time, from Nov. 16, 1973 to …

Zwei Herzen In Die Drygoods Schlock
S. J. Perelman · Fiction · September 13

The play begins with two quotations from the "Los Angeles Times," one, about dress designer Diane Von Furstenberg, the other, about Ron Talsky, a Hollywood…

The Duke Of Orkney's Leonardo
Sylvia Townsend Warner · Fiction · September 20

The fairy child, a boy, was born with a caul to Sir Huon and Lady Ulpha. Such children, said the midwife, never drown and keep an unblemished complexion to…

The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel García Márquez · Fiction · September 27

Gabriel García Márquez explores the ruins of colonialism and capitalism in this 1976 story about a solitary, undying despot in the “house of power,” translated by Gregory Rabassa.

What They Were Hunting For~II
John McPhee · A Reporter at Large · October 4

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Alaska and the hunt for a new capital site there. Tells about the beginnings of Juneau as a gold mining town in the 1880's. …

Here Come The Maples
John Updike · Fiction · October 11

As the Maples at last decided to part, the Puritan Commonwealth in which they lived passed a no-fault amendment to its creaking, overworked body of divorce…

The View from Plato’s Cave
Janet Malcolm · Photography · October 18

Janet Malcolm on photography, truth, artifice, and falsehood.

THE URGENT WHISPER
Penelope Gilliatt · Profiles · October 25

PROFILE of film maker Jean-Luc Godard. Writer talks to Godard at his home and studio in Grenoble. Describes both places. Godard talks about making films …

The World in a Room
Henry Bromell · Fiction · November 1

Incidents from the life of a family related alternately by the father, Sam, who recalls his wife Laura, and the son, Scobie, who thinks of his father. At …

The Fairy Godfathers
John Updike · Fiction · November 8

Tod and Pumpkin are lovers who have recently left their spouses, Lulu and Roger. The lovers are both seeing psychiatrists; Tod, whose name is also a word …

THE DISORDER OF MANY THEORIES
Gerald Jonas · A Reporter at Large · November 15

REPORTER AT LARGE about stuttering. Writer himself stuttered until he outgrew it during adolescence. He looked into the voluminous scientific literature on…

Ralph Ellison Goes Home
Jervis Anderson · Profiles · November 22

Jervis Anderson’s 1976 Profile of the author of “Invisible Man.”

Recapture Your Rapture, In One Seedy Session
S. J. Perelman · Fiction · November 29

Several months ago writer was in the basement workshop of a bootmaker in London's West End. Tells about his conversation with the proprietor, Mr. …

THE LAST PLACE
Harold T. P. Hayes · A Reporter at Large · December 6

REPORTER AT LARGE about the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania, E. Africa. It is a last gathering place for a diversity of African wildlife. 5100 sq. miles is a …

Microwaves~I
Paul Brodeur · A Reporter at Large · December 13

REPORTER AT LARGE about increased use, in both civilian & military fields. of microwaves and their health hazards.

Microwaves~II
Paul Brodeur · A Reporter at Large · December 20

REPORTER AT LARGE about what has been brought out by research into the effects of microwaves. The military-industrial complex has used national security to…

MOVING OUT, MOVING IN
James Stevenson · A Reporter at Large · December 27

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the Carter transition team, in Washington, D.C. The transition headquarters is in the H.E.W. building(5th floor), and Congress …

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