For Whom the Bell Tolls
Monday, November 17 2025
Seeing flags at half-mast last week brought to mind the immortal passage from the great poet and scholar John Donne.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
There Will Always Be an England (I Hope)
Monday, November 10 2025
Clay traveled to England last week to attend his daughter’s graduation ceremony, where she received her PhD from Oxford University.
Oxford University Graduation program.
I had the joy yesterday, Friday, November 7, 2025, of seeing my beloved daughter take her degree at the seventeenth-century Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.…
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The World of Error in a Galaxy of Facts
Tuesday, October 28 2025
Clay ponders the “Truth Taser.” The best invention since the Veg-O-Matic?
- Published in Features
My Adventures in Downsizing
Monday, October 20 2025
After spending five or six decades buying books, an enormous number of books, I have begun to downsize.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Where Steinbeck Said Goodbye to His California Home — Video Dispatch
Thursday, October 09 2025
Clay and Russ Eagle recently visited Fremont Peak, which overlooks California’s Salinas Valley and Monterey Bay. It was an especially important spot for John Steinbeck and deeply tied to his youth. Russ reads a passage from Travels with Charley, where the famous author writes about his last visit to there.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Reopening the Wounds of Wounded Knee
Monday, October 06 2025
Wounded Knee, really?
- Published in Features
Humor on Trial in an Age of Disruption
Monday, September 22 2025
Free speech and the future in context.
- Published in Features
Clay Reads and Riffs on Huckleberry Finn While Sitting Beside the Mighty Mississippi — Video Dispatch
Sunday, August 10 2025
Earlier this summer, Clay Jenkinson traveled to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at Cairo, Illinois. Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi, Clay read from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and talked about the novel and its author, Mark Twain, who enshrined this mighty river deep in American mythology.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Word About Dictionaries
Sunday, April 20 2025
A short dissertation on my infatuation with dictionaries.
- Published in Books
Reflections on America and the Open Road
Tuesday, April 15 2025
In a few weeks, Clay will embark on an 11,000-mile trek following the Lewis and Clark trail across the continent and back. As he loads his pickup and prepares to hit the road, Clay ponders what he has learned so far in his multi-year project to Listen to America.
- Published in Features