“I thought about the road leaving town, turning from pavement to dirt, mile after mile winding deeper into the woods. If I really thought about danger, that the road might bring me somewhere I couldn’t get out of, would I still go? Do I think anything can prevent this from happening? Why do I believe […]
A kidnapping deemed a hoax, the newbie detective who cracked the case, and the Harvard-trained lawyer whose mental unraveling set the whole story in motion.
“I know this land is far from sinister, I know it is appreciated by those who live here, but I also see that the life of a dairy farmer is often a hard, unforgiving existence. And no family saw that solitude and struggle more than the Luxtons.” In the late summer of 1975, deep in […]
This week we have stories from David Roth, Dhruv Mehrotra and Andy Greenberg, Thomas Dai, Cameron Maynard, and Katherine Rundell.
“It is one of the most brutal and heinous murders I have ever investigated in my life.”
“Though we were only a few miles into our walk, already the surprise of my surroundings was overwhelming. The surreal lakebeds. The pink skies. Beauty Peak. The pronghorn. We were left in one of those mindless trances that comes when nature completely engulfs you. No amount of planning or research can prepare you for an […]
“What they would be doing at top speed was exhuming human remains.”
“When the very presence of unhoused people on the Chicago Transit Authority is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?”
These audience hits were the most-viewed picks on our site in 2025.
“To love a list is to partake in letter and word, form and change. To make lists is to join a long line of list makers, to indulge in a timeless art, to break down the artificial wall that separates thinking and doing, thinkers and doers.” For some people, it’s simply a pen and index […]
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