The Crossword: Monday, July 28, 2025
A challenging puzzle.
Kameron Austin Collins is a film critic who has written for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. His puzzles have appeared in the New York Times and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Video
Virtual Togetherness Through Partner Crosswords
Social dynamics of the crossworld, a crossword meet-cute, and other ways to puzzle with friends while social distancing.
Mini Crossword
The Mini Crossword: Friday, July 25, 2025
Walk with modelesque confidence: five letters.
By Andy Kravis
Mini Crossword
The Mini Crossword: Thursday, July 24, 2025
Sign listed first on a horoscope page: five letters.
By Kate Chin Park
This Week in Fiction
Kiran Desai on Life with Her Characters
The author discusses her story “An Unashamed Proposal.”
By Cressida Leyshon
Takes
Jane Mayer on John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”
His monumental report changed history, journalism, and me.
By Jane Mayer
Fiction
“An Unashamed Proposal”
Look, Sunny said, however progressive my mother is, she is an Indian woman from another generation. Do you really think I can tell her that we sleep in the same bed?
By Kiran Desai
The Food Scene
Three Plays on the Pancake
A masa-based version at Hellbender, a riff on soufflé at Pitt’s, and a modern-classic stack at S&P Lunch.
By Helen Rosner
The Sporting Scene
What Is Lost in Luka Dončić’s Glow-Up
The rebrand of the Los Angeles Laker—who appeared on the cover of Men’s Health looking lean, buff, and bronze—makes sense. That doesn’t make it less sad.
By Louisa Thomas
The Writer’s Voice
Kiran Desai Reads “An Unashamed Proposal”
The author reads her story from the August 11, 2025, issue of the magazine.
Comment
The Politics of Fear
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump made his world view plain: there was “us” and there was “them.” Once he was in the White House, the fear factor would prevail.
By David Remnick
Photo Booth
At the Edge of Life and Death in Ukraine
A new photo book by Eddy van Wessel, with nearly two hundred images taken over the course of three years, offers a visual history of the war’s devastation.
By Joshua Yaffa