Metal Mouths

Eighty percent of of North American teenagers are currently in an orthodontist’s care. Why is America obsessed with perfect teeth?

Author: Dan P. Lee
Published: Jun 9, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,720 words)

Come Hear My Song

A night at the San Joaquin Valley’s last historic honky-tonk.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 11, 2015
Length: 17 minutes (4,437 words)

What Is Code?

Paul Ford and Bloomberg Businessweek collaborate on a 38,000-word essay meant to answer the big and small questions of what it means to be a coder: how programming works, why it matters, and whether you should start learning yourself.

Author: Paul Ford
Published: Jun 11, 2015
Length: 152 minutes (38,000 words)

The Economics of a Small Theater Company

Inside a 78-seat Los Angeles theater, drama plays out over new union-mandated wage rules.

Published: May 15, 2015
Length: 10 minutes (2,520 words)

The Lost Man

An amateur sleuth’s obsession with a true-crime story that has captivated Australians since 1948.

Published: Jun 7, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5,104 words)

Canada’s National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List

Guest reading list from Eva Holland: “This year’s awards were up for grabs among 326 nominees from 80 publications, spread across 43 categories. ‘Gold’ and ‘silver’ winners get awards, and the balance of the nominees receive honorable mentions. That spawns the occasional joke about how in Canadian magazines, everyone gets a medal for participation, but—go ahead, call me biased (I was a nominee/honorable mention in the ‘society’ category, for ‘The Forgotten Internment’)—I like the way our format lets us celebrate many different sorts of work, not just the ‘biggest,’ most ambitious features.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 10, 2015

The Art and Business of Book Covers

Here are pieces I’ve enjoyed, new and old, about the art and business of book cover design.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 10, 2015

Hotel Melancholia

A meditation on the particular sadness of faceless hotel rooms.

Source: Aeon
Published: Jun 8, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,900 words)

Alanis In Chains

Before Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette was a teenage pop star. So how did she transform into the “patron saint of mainstream grrrl power”?

Source: Hazlitt
Published: Jun 9, 2015
Length: 21 minutes (5,481 words)

The Box and the Basement

Nathan Rabin writes about being laid off from a high-profile media job and making the difficult decision to sell his home and move into his in-laws’ basement with his wife and son.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 9, 2015
Length: 7 minutes (1,900 words)