Charlie Coiner of Berryville, Va., heard himself described as a flower child turned flower grower. "You got it," said Coiner with a smile, as he reached into a bowl heaped with brilliant yellow-and-orange nasturiums. He tucked a few more of the blossoms into...

In cartoons and the sillier side of sci-fi, robots tend to chow down on nuts, bolts, and odd bits of metal, wires, and circuit boards. But in real life, we know, robots don't eat at all. Right? Guess again. Stuart Wilkinson, an associate...

“That’s Caitlin Flanagan,” a female journalist hissed to me at a party in Los Angeles, indicating the famously self-proclaimed anti-feminist—then not yet a staff writer for The New Yorker—perched in the general vicinity of a glinting swimming pool. One got the feeling she wouldn’t have...

“That’s Caitlin Flanagan,” a female journalist hissed to me at a party in Los Angeles, indicating the famously self-proclaimed anti-feminist—then not yet a staff writer for The New Yorker—perched in the general vicinity of a glinting swimming pool. One got the feeling she wouldn’t...

You know the conformity of life in the suburbs that we keep hearing about all the time? I have a suggestion. The Kerr family (who have so far confined themselves to the outskirts of Washington and the inskirts of Westchester) should be stationed for a certain period in whatever other suburban area has been adjudged temporarily the stuffiest. On the basis of their normal activities, as set down [in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"] by Jean, devoted wife of Walter and wary mother of Christo...

[Suburban] housewifery is the stock in trade of a dozen lesser writers, but Jean Kerr gives it a wry, stylish touch of her own [in "Please Don't Eat The Daisies"]…. The attitude of prosperous young parents toward their progeny seems to be to some extent a matter of fashion…. Maybe our general insecurity as parents is the nervous reflex that explodes into laughter at Jean Kerr's tough comment: "We are being very careful with our children. They'll never ...