Whipping Boy

A writer’s 40-year search for his school bully.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 13, 2014
Length: 29 minutes (7,428 words)

All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go

The troubling truth about Mars One, a company that is planning to send humans on a one-way trip to Mars.

Author: Elmo Keep
Source: Matter
Published: Nov 9, 2014
Length: 39 minutes (9,916 words)

Hello, My Name Is Stephen Glass, and I’m Sorry

Stephen Glass nearly destroyed The New Republic with his fabricated stories. Sixteen years later, Hanna Rosin confronts her former colleague, who now works at a personal-injury law firm in Beverly Hills.

Published: Nov 10, 2014
Length: 27 minutes (6,950 words)

Honoring Your Forebears: Our College Pick

R.J. Vogt’s profile of an aging Medal of Honor winner draws the best of Esquire‘s voice, ruminating on age and death and masculinity and heroism.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 12, 2014

Escape from Jonestown

15-year-old Tommy Bogue was sent to a promising new church settlement in Guyana—run by a charismatic leader named Jim Jones.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 12, 2014
Length: 25 minutes (6,304 words)

The Rise and Fall of John DeLorean

“It was the end of the story of John DeLorean as part of the American Dream—how a humble kid from Detroit could rise to the very top.” This story by Suzanne Snider—which details the fantastical rise and fall of John DeLorean, a former titan of the American automotive industry—first appeared in the June/July 2006 issue of Tokion.

Source: Tokion
Published: Nov 11, 2014
Length: 11 minutes (2,918 words)

The Walls of Berlin: A Reading List

Four stories about the Berlin Wall, from its creation to the memories it has helped shape, to mark the 25th anniversary of its fall.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 11, 2014

Mindsuckers

When a ladybug becomes a zombie, and other examples of parasitic nightmares in nature.

Published: Nov 11, 2014
Length: 10 minutes (2,593 words)

Escape Artist: The Case for Joan Crawford

David Denby explores the reasons why so many people dislike Joan Crawford as well as the complicated woman behind her public persona in this compelling profile from 2011.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jan 31, 2011
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

Forensic Topology

How Los Angeles’ built environment helped the city become a “bank robbery capital of the world.”

Published: Mar 1, 2013
Length: 11 minutes (2,800 words)