Magnus Torén, at The Blogs

Jun 26, 2026, 7:55 AM

We are teaching contempt for the courtroom and the ballot and the free page — and calling it conscience. During the past few weeks, I have found myself reading article after article, watching the election returns come in from New York,...

May 18, 2026, 5:13 AM

A Letter from California

There is a sentence I keep trying to write, and every version sounds worse than the last. It begins: “Bill Maher was brave to…” The rest does not really matter, because the opening has already given the game away....

May 14, 2026, 10:51 PM

J’Accuse: Sailing to Devil’s Island

I have always felt uneasy about demonstrations. Not because protest is illegitimate — sometimes it is necessary — but because crowds possess their own weather systems. Emotions gather force inside them. Certainties harden and nuance evaporates. One can begin by...

May 6, 2026, 6:02 AM

The Slow Death of Dialogue in the Bookstore

A bookstore: one of the last places where difficult ideas, clashing histories, and human conversation still meet face to face.

When books like Genius and Anxiety and Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor are treated as ideological offenses, something deeper than disagreement is breaking down in public life. Today I received this message from a colleague working at our bookstore: “OMG. Just...

Apr 25, 2026, 9:48 AM

Lemons, Larceny & Luigi: A Dispatch from the Revolution (Catered)

In which the children of the comfortable discover theft, murder, and the working class — in that order Let us begin with the lemons. Four lemons. Left behind at Whole Foods. The kind of oversight that happens to everyone who has...

Apr 20, 2026, 11:26 AM

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The erosion of moral distinction

A regime that allegedly murders thousands of its own people to silence opposition (Iran) is creepy when it shifts to diplomacy. Do not equate that with reckless speech

Apr 6, 2026, 11:28 PM

The Café as Mirror: Tel Aviv and the Arab World’s Urban Divide

I am not a neutral observer. I've spent time in enough of these places—in cafés in Hebron, Ramallah, Diyarbakır, and in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—to have developed something more than an opinion. Something more like a clear...

Mar 17, 2026, 6:48 AM

Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson

Many say please don’t pay attention to Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson. That is a reasonable instinct. But Tucker Carlson’s audience is vast—far larger than most of us want to believe—and his messaging travels. It settles into conversations, into...

Mar 6, 2026, 7:20 PM

Friday afternoon…

Friday afternoon my wife Mary Lu, who is recovering from a serious stroke, fell. She was sitting on the edge of her bed in the barn (our house is known as ‘the barn’). I was standing just a few feet...

Feb 9, 2026, 6:15 PM

Reflections on The Plot Against America and Mephisto

When does a country change? Not when tanks roll down the boulevard. Not when a constitution is ceremonially torn apart. Those moments come later, if they come at all. The change I’m thinking of is quieter. It arrives without announcement....

About Me

Magnus Toren has been Executive Director of the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California, since 1993. A native of Sweden, he circumnavigated the globe delivering yachts across five oceans before settling in Big Sur. Under his leadership, the Library has evolved into a vibrant cultural hub for literature, music, and community, dedicated to preserving and celebrating Henry Miller’s legacy. In addition to hosting A Big Sur Podcast, Toren writes and speaks widely on Big Sur’s cultural history, Henry Miller, and the arts. He lives in Big Sur with his wife Mary Lu. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent those of the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

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