A few months ago, I faced a confounding problem. My bookshelves were packed so tightly that I couldn't even shove in a copy of Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, which is a very skinny novella. I knew that I had too many books, but the idea of getting...

In a classic "Saturday Night Live" skit, Molly Shannon plays Sally O'Malley, an aging would-be Rockette, whose audition involves prancing around the stage doing the Can-Can while shouting proudly, "I'm Fifty!" I've been thinking of Sally over the past few weeks as longtime senator Arlen Specter made his fierce...

Russian-U.S. relations devolved last week after an American mother sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia, alone, because, as she claimed in a letter she sent with the child, she was "lied to and misled by the Russian orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues."...

This spring, Bert and Sarah Ballard hope to fly to Vietnam to pick up the little boy they plan to adopt. In the three years since they began the adoption process, the couple, who already have two biological daughters, have experienced the excitement, emotional upheaval, and bureaucratic setbacks typical for...

I had to sigh this week when I read that 12 out of 54 Haitian "orphans" airlifted out of that country in January may not, in fact, be orphans at all. The U.S. Government had fast-tracked the immigration process after receiving promises from the children's caregivers, two young...

This week, many people have recollected their interactions with Senator Edward Kennedy. I also met him -- in the pages of a 34-year-old transcript I discovered while researching a book about the war in Vietnam.

My research involved Operation Babylift, the U.S.-sponsored evacuation, and subsequent overseas adoption, of several thousand...