The State of the American Dog

“This is a story about an American dog: my dog, Dexter.” Through his personal story, Junod examines how pit bulls became so feared, so abused, and so neglected in the United States.

Author: Tom Junod
Source: Esquire
Published: Jul 16, 2014
Length: 25 minutes (6,430 words)

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

E.J. Levy recalls her mother and her cooking, a “weapon” her mother used throughout her marriage. Levy’s memories also reveal her struggle with her identity. Featured in the 2005 edition of The Best American Essays, edited by Susan Orlean.

Author: E.J. Levy
Source: Salmagundi
Published: Jun 1, 2005
Length: 16 minutes (4,061 words)

Breaking Ball: A Father and Son’s Pitch for Baseball Glory

In Japan, where baseball is a cherished pastime and players practice relentlessly, a father and his talented son decide to take a different approach to training and pitching: playing in fewer games to avoid injury.

Published: Jul 15, 2014
Length: 22 minutes (5,566 words)

Virginia Woolf’s Idea of Privacy

Joshua Rothman on Virginia Woolf’s “abstract, inner sense of privacy,” and the importance of privacy to artists.

Source: New Yorker
Published: Jul 11, 2014
Length: 9 minutes (2,311 words)

Dying With Dignity: A Reading List About the Right-to-Die Debate

Should patients suffering from terminal illnesses and unbearable pain be able to make the decision to end their lives? Helping the terminally ill end their lives is illegal in all but five states in the U.S. Here, five stories looking at the right-to-die debate.

Author: Mike Dang
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 15, 2014

The New Baby Boom

A generation of new babies is painting a picture of what the future of the British Empire will look like: “Today, the increase in British birth rates has ushered in another baby-centric age, one defined by three distinct aspects. More babies of different ethnicities are being born, challenging the very notion of an ethnic ‘minority’. They are also part of a simultaneous parenting boom: people from an ever wider array of backgrounds can become parents of healthy babies. Finally, there is an intellectual boom: as scientists and policy makers – like their political forebears – seek to use our growing knowledge about how babies and their brains develop to improve education and curb inequality.”

Source: Financial Times
Published: Jul 11, 2014
Length: 20 minutes (5,171 words)

Foul Territory

On foul baseballs and fan injuries: “How fast was it going? We don’t know for sure, but a line drive from a major league batter can easily exceed 100 miles per hour. We know some other things. We know that a baseball weighs five ounces. We know that force equals mass times acceleration. We know that Fred Fletcher’s six-year-old daughter, whom he will identify only as “A,” was sitting precisely 144 feet from home plate. The laces on her sneakers were knotted in neat bows. And she—well, not just she, but everyone around her—had less than one second to react to Cabrera’s line drive.”

Published: Jul 14, 2014
Length: 17 minutes (4,298 words)

Wrong Answer

Facing increased pressure to perform on standardized tests, a group of Atlanta teachers begin cheating. “After more than two thousand interviews, the investigators concluded that forty-four schools had cheated and that a ‘culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation has infested the district, allowing cheating—at all levels—to go unchecked for years.’ They wrote that data had been ‘used as an abusive and cruel weapon to embarrass and punish.’ Several teachers had been told that they had a choice: either make targets or be placed on a Performance Development Plan, which was often a precursor to termination.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 14, 2014
Length: 35 minutes (8,962 words)

Song of the Little Hobo Bird

Deep in the unforgiving desert of California’s Imperial County, one lone dreamer has built a mountain of outsider art, a celebration of God and love rendered in every possible color, looming three stories high and 100-feet wide. But what will become of Salvation Mountain now that its legendary creator has passed away?

Source: The Riveter
Published: Jul 11, 2014
Length: 24 minutes (6,095 words)

The White Album: How Bob Marley Posthumously Became a Household Name

Before he died Bob Marley’s best-selling album moved just 650,000 units in the U.S. After some careful remarketing, his label moved millions posthumously.

Source: Village Voice
Published: Jul 9, 2014
Length: 9 minutes (2,275 words)