On 112th and Amsterdam lies a Columbia staple. Over the years, Book Culture has become an integral part of most Columbia students’ lives. It’s where a freshman gets their LitHum box set, or the place you know you can rely on for a last minute textbook before an exam. With the Columbia Bookstore’s overpriced textbooks, supplies, and overflow of Pantone 292 merchandise, it’s no surprise that most students will say they prefer the local bookstore to one that lies on Columbia’s c

By Sam Needleman It was once ordained, by a soul whose name and major have since given over to the winds of time, that: “On the Last Tuesday before NSOP, a discerning denizen of Morningside Heights shall mark the turn of our Scholastic Calendar by surveying our environs and offering an insightful Review of their findings: a henceforth-entitled State of the Neighborhood Address.” In assuming this annual duty last week, Verily Veritas aspired not only to buttress his ascent tow

In this desert, the sky is yellow and Biblical In a small house with an unending yard that lolls into an arid hillside: she hems dresses, skirts, and trousers, careful to interact with her customers only as necessary. In this desert, the sky is yellow and biblical, and the clouds move in the dust of the windows of the house facing hers, while she is distracted by an ant crawling down a crack in the wall. Meanwhile, A moth busts its head against the kitchen window, worked up o

Students pay the bill when it comes to free speech, but what if they didn't have to?

Mary Schmich's metro journalism. By Grace Adee Mary Schmich has been a metro columnist for the Chicago Tribune since 1992. In 2012, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for her wide range of down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city.” She received international attention for her 1997 essay “Wear Sunscreen,” a hypothetical commencement speech that was adapted into a popular Baz Luhrmann music video and remains part

The Blue and White continues its short fiction series with a story from a recent graduate from Columbia College.

Affirmative By Nora May McSorley If you’re considering it, then you may actually have the brains admissions thinks you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be contemplating this quandary in the first place. (Exhibit A of what happens when you stay here too long: you start using words like “quandary.”) Well, leave your troubles with the classically-sexist marble statues at the front gates. I’m here to assist ye in distress. Whether you’re a senior with a mere year left here or a freshm

It’s not that being a part of the Columbia Democrats and serving as their president last year was out of the question for Joanna Cohen entering Columbia. In fact, between her physics major and her history concentration, she could have fulfilled a number of interests at Columbia and was looking for whatever grabbed her interest in a school she experienced first as an elementary school student at The School at Columbia. What grabbed her interest happened to be the 2016 Democrat

On average, Sean Kelso sees a new movie every week. One of his most recent favorites was The Art of Self-Defense, a small-release film about toxic masculinity with Jesse Eisenberg. But Kelso’s taste in film isn’t just confined to arthouse dramas. His other favorite? “It may be cliché, but I really liked Avengers: Endgame. It’s a franchise I’ve grown up with at this point,” Kelso said. “It’s incredible to see the overwhelming support for a movie of that scale.” Kelso doesn’t l

Illustration by Mwandeyi Kamwendo

“Don’t be afraid,” starts A Mercy, Toni Morrison’s ninth novel. No, it’s not the book we read for Lit Hum, but it was the first time I read Morrison, and I have to admit I was afraid. I told myself at the time it was the cadence, which isn’t untrue. Morrison chooses in those chapters to write how Florens would perceive the world and considering how she wouldn’t have received lessons in the Queen’s English, it makes sense that she beautifully describes the Virginia night sky l