The dog days of August are also the first week of school for millions of students, parents and teachers. Want some advice on how to handle it? Generations of America contributors have had thoughts on the subject.

A Reflection for Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by James T. Keane

Over 27 years beginning in 1947, Moira Walsh wrote over 750 movie reviews for America—each one possessed of an invincible authorial voice and informed by an encyclopedic knowledge of film history.

Why don't we have fallout shelters anymore? It’s a long story, but an editor at America had something to do with it.

With 'The Sparrow,' Mary Doria Russell imagines an alien world in intimate and fascinating detail—and then sends along some humans with deep questions about faith, God and the universe.

America's editors on some books that might catch our readers' fancy in these final weeks of summer.

A new movie treats the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb"—and someone whose exploits and commentaries received much treatment in 'America' over the years.

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by James T. Keane

When we think of science fiction, lasers and aliens might come to mind first—but it is also a genre in which religious imagination plays a role.

Francis X. Talbot, S.J., was for many years America's literary editor, and later its editor in chief. He was also a saucy literary stylist who loved nothing more than a good argument.