If you’re familiar with the navel-gazing internecine squabbles of the US national media, you probably know that Bari Weiss, the millennial conservative writer who for years attracted controversy and online consternation for her opinion columns, recently quit the New York Times, saying that the newspaper was insufficiently supportive of her because of her political views.

Those of us blessed with freedom to learn are all — every one of us — in a bubble of our own making. It can be broad and diverse, created from all kinds of information sources. But there is still a bubble.

Which is why opinion pages and books matter so much. They serve to expand the bubble. Columns can nudge us toward new ideas and broader perspectives, but it is a book that punches out the bubble and really expands the mind.

Bari Weiss has resigned from The New York Times. When the management of The Times decided it was missing something about a large segment of America after the shock of Hillary’s defeat in 2016, editorial page editor James Bennet brought her in to offer a perspective that was, by Times standards at least, conservative.