Darkness Visible
A novelist’s memoir of depression, whose “intrinsic malevolence” as a disease brought him close to suicide.
A novelist’s memoir of depression, whose “intrinsic malevolence” as a disease brought him close to suicide.
William Styron Vanity Fair Dec 1989 40min Permalink
How the author’s father wrote over 400 pieces of “pirate porn, ghost porn, science-fiction porn, vampire porn, historical porn, time-travel porn, secret-agent porn, thriller porn, zombie porn and Atlantis porn.”
Chris Offutt New York Times Magazine Feb 2015 10min Permalink
The transcript of chats between Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht and a man he believes to be a Hell’s Angel who agrees to supply “hitters” to carry out 5 assassinations.
Andy Greenberg Wired Feb 2015 25min Permalink
Irina Pavolva is trying to steer the Brooklyn Nets through a rough patch. Will she make it?
Louisa Thomas Grantland Feb 2015 35min Permalink
A journalist and documentarian charts over a decade of her relationship with Philip Roth.
Livia Manera Sambuy The Believer Jan 2015 20min Permalink
Even the dumpster divers of America are becoming tech-savvy, well-earning entrepreneurs.
Randall Sullivan Wired Feb 2015 15min Permalink
"Some of you probably think it’s a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color—the lighter the better—in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity?"
Toni Morrison New Yorker Feb 2015 10min Permalink
Seth Rogen, Amy Pascal, and the inside story of Sony’s hacking saga.
Mark Seal Vanity Fair Feb 2015 30min Permalink
The shame of family detention camps on the U.S. border.
Wil S. Hylton New York Times Magazine Feb 2015 30min Permalink
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is a columnist for VICE and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review and Vanity Fair.
“As long as the marginalized communities I’m writing about don’t think I’m full of shit, that’s success to me.”
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Feb 2015 Permalink
The voices we generally hear on public radio reflect only a narrow range of experiences, particularly with regards to race. There’s a cost to that.
Chenjerai Kumanyika Transom Jan 2015 10min Permalink
Aging, enhancement, and the hormone.
Alexis Madrigal Fusion Feb 2015 20min Permalink
The North Korean dictator kidnaps a famous actress and her film director husband, then invites them to dinner to chat about it.
Paul Fischer Esquire Feb 2015 20min Permalink
Trolls are frustrating, cruel and frightening creatures of the internet deep. But something surprising happens when one writer tries to deal with the worst of hers: He turns out to have a conscience.
Lindy West The Guardian Feb 2015 10min Permalink
How Harper Lee was duped into signing away the rights to To Kill a Mockingbird, which still sells 750,000 copies per year, and how she’s fighting to get them back.
Mark Seal Vanity Fair Jul 2013 30min Permalink
A baby dies after hitting his head when his father drops him, and the investigation that ensues can’t offer any easy answers.
Elizabeth Weil Matter Feb 2015 30min Permalink
Perhaps you didn’t know that in addition to being a very funny writer, Kafka’s life yields a lot of comedy too.
Rivka Galchen London Review of Books Dec 2014 15min Permalink
What it’s like to be gay in Putin’s Russia.
Jeff Sharlet GQ 30min
“It was there that Nancy and Louis fell in love not only with each other, but also with Afghanistan itself. The country was as exceptional and difficult as they were—and when it descended into chaos, they had no choice but to follow it.” [subscription required]
Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong.
Amanda Hess Pacific Standard 30min
On a humanitarian crisis in Texas, the deadliest state in the U.S. for undocumented immigrants.
Life in your nineties.
Roger Angell New Yorker 20min
“In less than a year, he’d lost his mother, his father, and, as he’d once and sometimes still felt Julia to be, the love of his life…”
Donald Antrim New Yorker 25min
Renovating often involves additional, unforseen costs, but for one Toronto couple it ends in divorce – and death.
Richard Warnica National Post Jan 2015 15min Permalink
A good trip on psilocybin might be just the ticket to relieve anxiety and depression, particularly in the terminally ill. But are we ready to dive back in to psychedelic research?
Michael Pollan New Yorker Feb 2015 40min Permalink
The physical rigors of pregnancy tangle with the personal ambitions of a war photojournalist, without limiting her in the least.
Lynsey Addario New York Times Magazine Jan 2015 20min Permalink
Ripping out the guts of an “utterly preposterous document”: the Starr Report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Renata Adler Vanity Fair Dec 1998 Permalink
One of Europe’s poorest countries wanted a road, so U.S. mega-contractor Bechtel sold it a $1.3 billion highway, with the backing of a powerful American ambassador. Funny thing is, the highway is barely being used—and the ambassador is now working for Bechtel.
Matthew Brunwasser Foreign Policy Jan 2015 20min Permalink
"Really, the ideas and theories we form about others and their motivations are just as much portraits of ourselves as they are descriptions of other people. It’s impossible for them to be anything else, when you think about it."
Jeet Heer The Paris Review Oct 2014 30min Permalink
Reprints Business Science Tech
On the coming age of domestic drones.
Eli Sanders The Magazine Mar 2013 30min Permalink