Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
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I Had a Friend. He Dreamed of Israel.
After 35 years, a visit to a grave, and to a different country.
American Green
How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America, and what is the ecological cost?
The Scientific Language of Cooking
Have dinner with Harold McGee, the academic-turned-cookbook author who paved the way for Alton Brown and a whole generation of culinary scientists.
Alternative Reality: ‘California Divided’
A story about a blind, 88-year-old pharmacist in Memphis named Charles A. Champion, the end of All About Beer, and more in this alt weekly reading list.
Alternative Reality: An Alt-Weekly Reading List
Nine excellent stories discovered in U.S. alt-weekly newspapers.
The Encyclopedia of the Missing
She keeps watch over one of the largest databases of missing persons in the country. For Meaghan Good, the disappeared are still out here, you just have to know where to look.
One Dollar a Word? That’ll Be $28,000
Fresh off Watergate, Carl Bernstein next turned to expose the connection between the CIA and newspapers. For his efforts, he was paid $28,000. Inside one of publishing’s biggest boondoggles.
The Final Five Percent
If traumatic brain injuries can impact the parts of the brain responsible for personality, judgment, and impulse control, maybe injury should be a mitigating factor in criminal trials — but one neuroscientist discovers that assigning crime a biological basis creates more issues than it solves.
Living to Create: Talking Music and Writing With Drummer Emily Rose Epstein
Musician Emily Rose Epstein talks about her dual life as a rock drummer and writer.

