The Psychiatrist Who Believed People Could Tell the Future

After people predicted a mining disaster, a psychiatrist began collecting premonitions, and a startling number turned out to be true. To his horror, one seer predicted the psychiatrist’s own death. He spent years looking over his shoulder, living a life that begged the question: can you scare yourself to death?

Author: Sam Knight
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Mar 4, 2019
Length: 28 minutes (7,011 words)

How the Sandwich Consumed Britain

To perfect a culinary staple as ubiquitous and timeless as the sandwich “is a question of using tenacity, knowledge, know-how, flair.”

Author: Sam Knight
Source: The Guardian
Published: Nov 24, 2017
Length: 25 minutes (6,285 words)

Operation London Bridge: The Secret Plan for the Days After the Queen’s Death

There’s plenty the British don’t speak of. But the death of the 90-year-old Queen might be one of the least spoken about—and best planned for—inevitabilities faced by an entire nation. Sam Knight delivers a minute-by-minute account of what could happen when Elizabeth II, who has outlasted twelve U.S. presidents, dies within the walls of Buckingham Palace. Code word: “London Bridge is down.”

Author: Sam Knight
Source: The Guardian
Published: Mar 16, 2017
Length: 32 minutes (8,200 words)

The Duo That Dominates Dressage

Inside the fanciful world of dressage and how one outsider athlete and her unruly horse set a new standard in the little-known equestrian sport.

Author: Sam Knight
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 1, 2016
Length: 23 minutes (5,761 words)

Lot 800: The Bainbridge Vase

The story of an antique Chinese vase, found in a house clearance in Pinner and sold for £43m in a small auction room, was a suburban fairytale. Was it also too good to be true?

Author: Sam Knight
Source: Prospect
Published: Apr 21, 2011
Length: 22 minutes (5,562 words)

The Final Countdown

Some time this year, NASA’s space shuttle will touch down for the last time. Bereft of their jobs and their mission, what will happen to the people of Florida’s Space Coast? “The Space Coast is also facing a less visible but equally unnerving identity crisis. Over the years, the shuttle has not just brought dollars to Brevard County—or to the rest of the US for that matter—but a unifying statement of daring and of America’s capacity to do what no other country can do. ‘Whenever we launch, it is an act of courage. It is an act of risk taking,’ John Shannon, the director of the program, told me. ‘Even though we are reminded after Challenger and Columbia that this is a risky business, we still choose to do that.'”

Author: Sam Knight
Source: Prospect
Published: Jan 26, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,016 words)