September 9, 2008

Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, “Home,” a kind of bookend to her Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gilead,” is an inward-looking story about a dying man and two of his children computing the losses in their lives and their distance from God.

The use of Salvia divinorum, a potent hallucinogenic herb, was once limited to revelation seekers in Mexico. Now, the drug is available legally across the U.S.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has played the coquette about his possible interest in adding more minutes — 2,103,840 of them — to his tenure at City Hall.

Through 78 years, the neglect of the Beacon Theater in Manhattan has often been profound, but it is now undergoing a $15 million restoration.

Roger Federer’s victory in the U.S. Open came at the end of a season during which he had not won a single meaningful title.