A look at how deep pockets and expensive libel suits allow billionaires like Donald Trump and Peter Thiel to hamper and threaten the free press in the United States.
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A Reading List for Thanksgiving
None of the following stories were written in 2016, but the themes of our contemporary American Thanksgiving traditions—family, identity, history—remain relevant.
White Nationalists See Trump as Their Troll in Chief. Is He With Them?
An examination of the racist extremist movements capitalizing on Trump’s victory.
Truth, Lies, and Videotape
When writer Kelly Luce spends a week in a women’s detention center in Japan for a crime she didn’t commit, she learns about the difference between perception and reality, and what justice and punishment mean in a country known for honor and low crime.
Write the Book That Scares You Shitless: An Interview with Colson Whitehead
LitHub executive editor John Freeman’s interview with author Colson Whitehead, who this week won the National Book Award for The Underground Railroad. The two discuss the genesis of the book, the ridiculous notion that we entered a “post-racial” world after Barack Obama was elected, and the lingering relevance and effects of slavery.
“It Smelled Like Death”: An Oral History of the Double Dare Obstacle Course
An entertaining behind-the-scenes look at how the obstacle course in a popular Nickelodeon game show was put together.
The Search for My Father’s Killer
An excerpt of Daily Beast editor-at-large Goldie Taylor’s forthcoming memoir, Let Me Still Be Singing When Evening Comes. Taylor learns some hard truths about her father as she searches for clues about his murder in St. Louis, in 1973.
Connie Converse’s Time Has Come
In the 1950s, polymath Connie Converse recorded songs in her apartment that the American public met with silence. Then she disappeared.
Thank You, Jon Gnagy: An Appreciation of a Predecessor to Bob Ross
Ned Stuckey-French reflects on the host of “Learn to Draw,” the “middlebrow” instructional art show he loved as a kid.
Orlando: The Day After
“It keeps happening, at an unpredictable frequency and with its own malevolent rhythm, because June 12 isn’t when it happened. That’s just when the shooting stopped.” Sean Flynn explores what happened in the days, weeks, and months after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
