C.R.A.S.H. Landing With Brooks Headley

A Del Posto pastry chef’s account of taking off work for a week, going on a mini-tour with his punk band in California, and all of the food he eats along the way.

Source: Lucky Peach
Published: Jan 3, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5,062 words)

Hotter Than Lava

Flashbangs—a $50 device that is not dissimilar to a military-style grenade— are used by cops across the country during raids, with little oversight and horrifying results.

Source: ProPublica
Published: Jan 12, 2015
Length: 14 minutes (3,600 words)

The Power of Story

How storytelling affects our brains and the way we interact with one another.

Source: Aeon
Published: Jan 12, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,863 words)

A Meditation on Pain

“I want to tell you about a headache. I want to tell you when someone says they are having a headache we never take it seriously.”

Source: River Teeth
Published: Jan 13, 2015
Length: 15 minutes (3,767 words)

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

A first-person account of how mental illness reshapes a marriage.

Published: Jan 12, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5,000 words)

The Dark Arts: A Corporate Espionage Reading List

Here are five stories that delve deep into the murky world of corporate information gathering.

Author: Julia Wick
Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 12, 2015

The Belfast Operation

A vividly reported chronicle of a loose cartel of freewheeling, twenty-something drug dealers who built a cocaine empire in rural Maine in the mid 1980’s, along with the undercover operation that brought them down.

Source: Down East
Published: Jan 7, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,600 words)

Held to Account

“If you don’t reach a child by seventh grade, they won’t make it to tenth.” An upstart charter school is hoping to turn things around for students in Clayton County, Georgia, where dysfunction had caused the entire school system to lose its accreditation a few years ago.

Published: Jan 6, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,694 words)

East of Palo Alto’s Eden

On race and Silicon Valley history.

Source: TechCrunch
Published: Jan 11, 2015
Length: 49 minutes (12,406 words)

What Burns Within Us: Five Stories About Fire

Here are five pieces on fire-eaters, firefighters, fire-walkers and fire-growers.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 11, 2015