Teenage Wastelands

An essay about getting older, loving music and being the middle-aged people at an arena concert.

Author: JIM RULAND
Source: Granta
Published: Jan 29, 2014
Length: 10 minutes (2,669 words)

California’s Water Crisis: A Reading List

Here are five perspectives on California’s water war, from one journalist’s report from the farms of the Central Valley to an ever-resonant essay on water by Joan Didion, written 35 years ago.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 11, 2014

Livin’ Thing: An Oral History of ‘Boogie Nights’

How Paul Thomas Anderson created his Lawrence of Arabia for the San Fernando Valley porn scene.

Source: Grantland
Published: Dec 10, 2014
Length: 65 minutes (16,325 words)

Giving Away ‘Anatoly Z.’

The story of a boy’s un-adoption. The original family struggles with whether it made the right decision, while a new family tries to succeed in helping him.

Source: Yahoo News
Published: Dec 10, 2014
Length: 30 minutes (7,625 words)

Saskia Sassen’s Missing Chapter

Adolf Eichmann was a frequent visitor to sociologist Saskia Sassen’s childhood home in Argentina. This essay meditates on Sassen’s life and career, her father’s past and the notion of public and private lives. A response from Sassen can be found here.

Author: Marc Parry
Published: Dec 4, 2014
Length: 13 minutes (3,433 words)

An Ebola Doctor’s Return From the Edge of Death

The story of an American doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone.

Published: Dec 8, 2014
Length: 9 minutes (2,270 words)

The Pawn King

Are pawnshops exploiting the poor or saving those hit hardest by the recession?

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Dec 4, 2014
Length: 17 minutes (4,284 words)

The Gothic Life and Times of Horace Walpole

Two-hundred and fifty years ago, Horace Walpole published ‘The Castle of Otranto,’ a strange, campy book that’s widely considered to be the first Gothic novel. In real life, his family was beset by tragedy and his life’s obsession was a Gothic castle called Strawberry Hill.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 10, 2014
Length: 16 minutes (4,064 words)

The Worst School in America?

A tiny, eccentric Chicago institution was just voted the worst college in America. But perhaps Shimer College offers far more than can be quantified.

Author: Jon Ronson
Source: The Guardian
Published: Dec 8, 2014
Length: 10 minutes (2,546 words)

The 40-Year Search for Beverly’s Killer

Forty years after a young mother was murdered in her suburban kitchen a police force tackles their oldest cold case.

Source: Toronto Star
Published: Dec 5, 2014
Length: 22 minutes (5,605 words)