Sam Anderson of the New York Times Magazine reports on Russell Westbrook, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard and the best player in the NBA. What’s extraordinary about this piece isn’t just Anderson’s insight (he wrote about the Thunder for the NYTM in 2012), or how his vivid descriptions of the utter ferocity and skill with which Westbrook plays—it’s that Anderson was likely allowed 10 or so minutes to spend actually interviewing Westbrook, a famously taciturn subject. The piece is a marvel of observational reporting.
Quotes
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
“I Would Prefer Not To.”
Judith Levine, co-founder of the National Writers Union explains how an 1863 Herman Melville novella might be the key to contemporary political resistance.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Robert Caro on Understanding a President Through the Rooms He Occupied
There are facts in journalism, but there are other truths hidden in the room. In this 2016 Paris Review interview with James Santel, Robert Caro, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson, gives a masterclass on how to report on a subject’s behavior, his environment, his breath, and the cushiness […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Breaking Elgar’s Enigma: Cryptographic Genius or Crackpot?
In New Republic, Daniel Estrin writes about how a former insurance adjuster claims to have solved the 118-year-old cryptographic mystery of the hidden message in Edward Elgar’s infamous Enigma Variations.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Case for Dungeons & Dragons
I was never a Dungeons and Dragons person, but as a nerd, seems like they’ve always been nearby. I would not have expected a Venn diagram overlapping the D&D nerds I know — delightful, gentle weirdos who like elves and other imaginary creatures — with high security prisoners. Elisabeth de Cleer wrote about one such […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When an Author Lives His Material
Alex Vadukul tells the story of BrinÂ-Jonathan Butler, a successful boxing writer who’s extensively documented boxing in Cuba, only to become part of the story by teaching the sport in New York’s Central Park.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
“Madness and the Hurling of Furniture,” or How You Know It Was a Good Night in Ancient Greece
Andrew Curry’s thorough history of our relationship to and use of alcohol is informative, enlightening, and just plain entertaining.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What the Boston Globe’s ‘Make It Stop’ Front Page Says About Moral Outrage in Journalism
Nothing is normal right now, so it makes perfect sense that journalists should reconsider what objectivity means in 2017.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Iraqi Special Forces Fight to Liberate Mosul
For The New Yorker, Luke Mogelson embeds himself with the Nineveh Province swat team.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Quotes
Not For the Paint of Heart
Mystery brunette and GQ correspondent Taffy Brodesser-Akner rented and rented, until a bad experience with a New Jersey landlord and a fit of financial security convinced her and her husband it was time to commit to homeownership. Now for the hard part: Choosing paint colors without having a complete existential breakdown. Akner details her taupe night […]