Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia
Her fiction has imagined societies riddled with misogyny, oppression, and environmental havoc. These visions now feel all too real.
Her fiction has imagined societies riddled with misogyny, oppression, and environmental havoc. These visions now feel all too real.
Rebecca Mead New Yorker Apr 2017 35min Permalink
What former NBA coach Monty Williams learned in the wake of losing his wife.
Chris Ballard Sports Illustrated Apr 2017 30min Permalink
On water in the West, climate change, and how the birth of modern environmentalism lies at the bottom of Lake Powell.
Rebecca Solnit California Sunday Apr 2017 20min Permalink
A profile of Gil-Scott Heron.
Alec Wilkinson New Yorker Aug 2010 25min Permalink
A primer.
Richard Beck n+1 Apr 2017 25min Permalink
On becoming a stepmom.
Leslie Jamison New York Times Magazine Apr 2017 25min Permalink
The long legal saga of Kerry Max Cook, who for almost 40 years fought to clear his name after being convicted of murder.
Michael Hall Texas Monthly Mar 2017 50min Permalink
A preview of the “nuclear option.”
Jeffrey Toobin New Yorker Mar 2005 15min Permalink
An investigation into “a subtler form of redlining.”
Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Lauren Kirchner, Surya Mattu ProPublica Apr 2017 20min Permalink
Inside a megachurch started by Procter & Gamble brand managers.
Mya Frazier Businessweek Apr 2017 15min Permalink
There is no script for losing a spouse in your 30s.
CHRISTINA FRANGOU The Globe and Mail Dec 2016 30min Permalink
In an excerpt from the author's debut novel, LAPD officers search an affluent couple's home.
Bethany Ball Lit Hub Apr 2017 10min Permalink
From 2009 to 2014, police in Florida shot 827 people. Many of these incidents were avoidable and unnecessary.
Ben Montgomery Tampa Bay Times Apr 2017 30min Permalink
Conspiracy theorists think that the government killed the aspiring Libertarian filmmaker David Crowley to stop him from making his film about an authoritarian takeover of the United States and the vets who fight back. The truth is far stranger.
Alec Wilkinson New Yorker Mar 2017 25min Permalink
The city that fell in love with the mob.
David Grann The New Republic Jul 2000 30min Permalink
Brian Reed, a senior producer at This American Life, is the host of S-Town.
“It’s a story about the remarkableness of what could be called an unremarkable life.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
Apr 2017 Permalink
“I saw the son of a bitch while I was up on my tractor, running the rotary cutter along a wall of green sagegrass that was five feet high. It was August in Mississippi, hot, on over in the afternoon but not near sundown. The sky had softened, and the coyote was trotting along in the open like the most unconcerned thing you could imagine.”
Larry Brown Men's Journal Jul 2000 15min Permalink
“Rosemary was wide awake the whole time. The doctors had her recite poems as they cut—when she was silent, they knew the procedure was complete.”
Lyz Lenz Marie Claire Mar 2017 10min Permalink
Every year, thousands of teenagers from one city in Nigeria risk death and endure forced labor and sex work on the long route to Europe.
Ben Taub New Yorker Apr 2017 45min Permalink
The story of Lisa S. Davis and Lisa S. Davis.
Lisa S. Davis The Guardian Apr 2017 15min Permalink
“Brace Belden can’t remember exactly when he decided to give up his life as a punk-rocker turned florist turned boxing-gym manager in San Francisco, buy a plane ticket to Iraq, sneak across the border into Syria, and take up arms against the Islamic State. But as with many major life decisions, Belden, who is 27 — “a true idiot’s age,” in his estimation — says it happened gradually and then all at once.”
Reeves Wiedeman New York Apr 2017 25min Permalink
Disillusioned with fine dining, one of the world’s great chefs took on fast food. It has been harder than he ever imagined.
Daniel Duane California Sunday Mar 2017 20min Permalink
“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.”
Richard Hofstadter Harper's Nov 1964 25min Permalink
An essay on clothing in uncertain times.
Zach Baron GQ Mar 2017 15min Permalink
Young people who leave strict Jewish communities face a bewildering, lonely new world. One group helps them navigate it.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner New York Times Magazine Mar 2017 20min Permalink