Caged

What drives Ronda Rousey to fight?

Author: Mary Pilon
Source: Esquire
Published: Nov 10, 2015
Length: 12 minutes (3,109 words)

The Hunt for the Tinmouth Apple

A story about America’s early history of hard cider, and the search for the next great apple.

Source: Boston Magazine
Published: Oct 1, 2015
Length: 8 minutes (2,176 words)

By the Reflection of What Is

On the aesthetics, performance, and “majestic wrath” of Frederick Douglass, the most-photographed American of the nineteenth century.

Source: Liveright
Published: Nov 10, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5,654 words)

The Strange, True Story of How a Chairman at McKinsey Made Millions of Dollars off His Maid

For a brief period of time, Manju Das was almost certainly the wealthiest domestic worker in the world. Unfortunately, she never knew or had access to the money; she was a pawn in an insider trading scheme, and her employer was using her name to collect millions.

Source: The Nation
Published: Nov 9, 2015
Length: 24 minutes (6,141 words)

Living and Dying on Airbnb

Zak Stone’s father was killed while staying in an Airbnb rental. Here, he examines Airbnb’s history of providing reactive—rather than proactive—solutions to liability issues.

Author: Zak Stone
Source: Matter
Published: Nov 9, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5,571 words)

Confessions of a For-Profit College Inspector

Young, desperate, and laden with student loans, Michael Fitzgerald takes a job as a for-profit college inspector, enticing other students into debt to pay back his own.

Published: Nov 2, 2015
Length: 13 minutes (3,328 words)

The Outfield

Spring training, scheming, and lingerie parties: a short story about a community of baseball wives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Source: n+1
Published: Nov 6, 2015
Length: 29 minutes (7,440 words)

Lost at Sea

How Salvador Alvarenga survived 438 days at sea, drifting from the coast of Mexico to the Marshall Islands.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Nov 7, 2015
Length: 18 minutes (4,508 words)

Stories of Syrian Refugees: A Reading List

You’ll meet a teenager preparing for her wedding, queer lovers separated by bureaucracy, war and thousands of miles, and four women who defended their Kurdish city to the death. There are artists and activists and archeologists, all working together to preserve Syrian culture and the lives of its citizens.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 8, 2015

Blood Ties

Two college lovers, and a murder in 1985.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 2, 2015
Length: 46 minutes (11,679 words)