Kafka’s Last Trial

During his lifetime, Franz Kafka burned an estimated 90 percent of his work. After his death at age 41, in 1924, a letter was discovered in his desk in Prague, addressed to his friend Max Brod. “Dearest Max,” it began. “My last request: Everything I leave behind me . . . in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.”

Published: Sep 22, 2010
Length: 32 minutes (8,053 words)

So You Wanna Be a Chef

I am frequently asked by aspiring chefs, dreamers young and old, attracted by the lure of slowly melting shallots and caramelizing pork belly, or delusions of Food Network stardom, if they should go to culinary school. I usually give a long, thoughtful, and qualified answer. But the short answer is “no.”

Source: Michael Ruhlman
Published: Sep 20, 2010
Length: 13 minutes (3,400 words)

Still Going Strong

He’s 40, but Jim Thome’s mind isn’t on retirement. He’s thinking about hitting the ball a country mile‚ and winning his first World Series championship

Published: Sep 27, 2010
Length: 11 minutes (2,997 words)

The Unconsoled

A writer’s tragedy, and a nation’s. Profile of David Grossman

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 27, 2010
Length: 41 minutes (10,302 words)

The Night Sinatra Happened

As 1940 approached, a skinny, big-eared Italian-American kid with a hotly seductive voice was aiming to topple Bing Crosby’s cool supremacy and turn American popular music on its head.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Oct 1, 2010
Length: 38 minutes (9,706 words)

How to Fix the Economy: An Expert Panel

Tom Keene talks with Bob Shiller, Peter Orszag, and other leading economists on how to “get out of this mess”

Author: Tom Keene
Source: Businessweek
Published: Sep 16, 2010
Length: 18 minutes (4,521 words)

New Drugs Stir Debate on Rules of Clinical Trials

When two cousins each learned that a lethal skin cancer called melanoma was spreading rapidly through his body, the young men found themselves with the shared chance of benefiting from a recent medical breakthrough.

Author: Amy Harmon
Published: Sep 18, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,173 words)

The American Male at Age Ten

Susan Orlean’s classic profile of a ten-year-old boy named Colin Duffy:

“If Colin Duffy and I were to get married, we would have matching superhero notebooks. We would ‘ wear shorts, big sneakers, and long, baggy T-shirts depicting famous athletes every single day, even in the winter. We would sleep in our clothes. We would both be good at Nintendo Street Fighter II, but Colin would be better than me. We would have some homework, but it would not be too hard and we would always have just finished it. We would eat pizza and candy for all of our meals. We wouldn’t have sex, but we would have crushes on each other and, magically, babies would appear in our home. We would win the lottery and then buy land in Wyoming, where we would have one of every kind of cute animal. All the while, Colin would be working in law enforcement – probably the FBI. Our favorite movie star, Morgan Freeman, would visit us occasionally. We would listen to the same Eurythmics song (“Here Comes the Rain Again”) over and over again and watch two hours of television every Friday night. We would both be good at football, have best friends, and know how to drive; we would cure AIDS and the garbage problem and everything that hurts animals. We would hang out a lot with Colin’s dad. For fun, we would load a slingshot with dog food and shoot it at my butt. We would have a very good life.”

Source: Esquire
Published: Dec 1, 1992
Length: 20 minutes (5,081 words)

The Pen That Never Forgets

Dervishaj’s entire grade 7 math class has been outfitted with “smart pens” made by Livescribe, a start-up based in Oakland, Calif. The pens perform an interesting trick: when Dervishaj and her classmates write in their notebooks, the pen records audio of whatever is going on around it and links the audio to the handwritten words.

Published: Sep 16, 2010
Length: 13 minutes (3,411 words)

The United Church of Deliverance

“If I had the money I spent on drugs and alcohol, I would buy this building, remodel it, and then take everyone here on a cruise,” Senior Pastor Carrie McEachern told her congregation of about a dozen.

Source: The Awl
Published: Sep 16, 2010
Length: 13 minutes (3,319 words)