Longform

Why do all those rugged coastlines, moors and stone buildings make England seem haunted?

Before The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen was just another literary novelist with a new book coming out.

The hopes, dreams and failures of Nigeria’s commercial capital.

The mysterious death of one of college basketball’s most promising coaches.

Meet a man who could be called the “Hillaryland Whisperer.”

A young boy, a pack of cigarettes, a looming summer.

"But he had found them. They were his, and he was going to smoke one or maybe three or four if that’s what he decided. And plus by himself, as in totally alone. And no one could stop him, no one, for that matter, would even know. He looked around again and saw the same—lazy cars and robins, the willow with its doves, an old man down the street, that was it, and sun and sky and breeze."

Darren Sharper was once an NFL star. He was also a serial rapist, one who law enforcement failed to stop.

A portrait of a comedian in the moment just before he becomes huge.

The allure of invisibility.

After robbing two video stores with a friend, Rene Lima-Marin was sentenced to almost 100 years in prison. Then, due to a clerical error, he was released 88 years too early.

Nowadays, the young and privileged view un- and under-paid assistantships as the road to a successful creative career. Are they deluding themselves?

What led to the 1970 explosion of a Greenwich Village townhouse, in which three members of the Weather Underground were killed, and what happened to the group after.

Excerpted from Days of Rage.

On Azealia Banks.

The strange situation of Huntsville, Texas.

Maybe Clinton isn’t a “good candidate,” as political junkies like to say. But that might not matter in 2016.

Being exonerated for a crime you didn’t commit is a hard-won triumph. But how can the state make up for what you’ve lost while in prison?

Kurt Cobain’s suicide sent his fans – and the local media – into a tailspin.

The sugar beet harvest in North Dakota draws a modern version of the American hobo.

An independent pawn store stumbles along in an economically depressed Pennsylvania town.

What happend to Serafim Todorov after the 1996 Olympic featherweight semifinals.

David Simon and Richard Price, two of the greatest crime storytellers of our time, talk about their craft.

Joseph Mitchell used composites in his non-fiction, invented characters and added flourishes to his facts. Does it matter?

On the rapid disintegration of the ecosystem in Las Vegas.

A treatment for liver cancer gives the writer a fresh perspective on illness – and wellness.