What can haunted houses and their history tell us about American history and culture? Writer Colin Dickey sets out across America to investigate America’s haunted spaces in order to uncover what their ghost stories say about who we were, are, and will be.
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Cloak-and-Dagger in America’s Cornfields
In Li’s luggage, [FBI] agents found two large Pop Weaver microwave popcorn boxes. Buried under the bags of unpopped snack kernels were roughly 300 tiny manila envelopes, all cryptically numbered—2155, 2403, 20362. Inside each envelope was a single corn seed. In Ye’s luggage, agents found more corn seeds hidden amid his clothes, each one individually […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
King-Killers in America (and the American Who Avenged the King)
When Charles II regained the throne, he launched a global manhunt for the judges who had sentenced his father to death.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Impossibility of Building a Personal Brand
Creating a personal brand is exhausting, but potentially rewarding. It requires maintenance on all fronts, social media and IRL. Is it tenable for the average human being?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Pablo Escobar: Renaissance Man
As dusk settles on the Magdalena Valley, the jungly middle stretch of Colombia’s great river basin, the hippopotamuses bawl and snort. The indelicate groans of these multi-ton beasts border on comedic, but mostly their ruckus is a fearsome thing—a primal ritual that has churned these waters ever since Pablo Escobar imported four hippos to his […]
Posted inNonfiction
Borges and $: The Parable of the Literary Master and the Coin
Thirty years ago, the world lost a great literary mind—the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. Today, Elizabeth Hyde Stevens revisits the financial conditions that produced this life of pure literature, finding unexpected hope in the darkest period of Borges’ forgotten past.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Why the World Is Betting on a Better Battery: A Reading List
Nick Leiber | Longreads | March 2015 The first battery, a pile of copper and zinc discs, was invented more than 200 years ago, ushering in the electric age. Subsequent versions led to portable electronics, mobile computing, and our current love affair with smartphones (1,000 of which are shipped every 22 seconds). Now batteries are […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
King-Killers in America (and the American Who Avenged the King)
When Charles II regained the throne, he launched a global manhunt for the judges who had sentenced his father to death.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
A Fish So Coveted People Have Smuggled, Kidnapped, and Killed For It
The Asian arowana or “dragon fish” is protected by the Endangered Species Act and illegal to own in the U.S. But the tropical fish’s status symbol among wealthy buyers has made it the object of a thriving black market.
