A Profile Auditor goes sniffing after anomalies in the consumption habits and personal data of an unsuspecting hotel clerk.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
On Lucinda Williams and her “love affair with loss.”
A personal history of Soldier of Fortune magazine and the mercenary-wannabes who read and wrote it.
On learning a new language, a new culture, and why “it must never be concluded that an urge toward the cosmopolitan, toward true education, will make people stop hitting you.”
Established media companies used to sue YouTube. Now they’re betting on it.
The author examines his terrible football career.
Almost 40 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with limits on abortion. Activists like Rebecca Gompert imagine a future where those limits are meaningless because most abortions happen at home.
On being black in an all-white Swiss village.
The rise and fall of travel writing.
The anatomy of a collapse.
Zach Baron is a staff writer for GQ.
“People love to put celebrity stuff or culture stuff lower on the hierarchy than, say, a serial killer story. I think they're all the same story. If you crack the human, you crack the human.”
Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week’s episode.
Retracing Hunter S. Thompson’s steps 40 years later.
How a Chinese national, with the help of a suspected spy, disappeared with laptops and hard drives that may have contained sensitive information from the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center.
On the narrative of sexual coercion.
After Devaughn Darling died during a workout with the Florida State football team, his family was awarded a payout of $2 million. That was 13 years ago. Only $200,000 has come.
After one of the most decisive wins in Kentucky Derby history, Barbaro broke his leg at the Preakness, ending a promising career and beginning a herculean effort to save his life.
Spun-off from Time Warner and saddled with $1.3 billion in debt as a parting gift, the once-mighty Time Inc needs to reinvent itself. Fast.
How seven Italian scientists came to be convicted of manslaughter following a catastrophic quake.
The future (and past) of non-lethal weaponry deployed against civilian populations.
How Cassandro, who wrestles in drag, became a star Mexican luchadore.
The bumpy rise of Saturday Night Live’s first star.
A professional quarterback who lost a battle with his weight, a hermit who lived off the grid for nearly 30 years and a spy who went far too far — the week's top stories on Longform.
One man’s battle with mental illness.
“He was an ebullient boy, quick to laugh and easy to love. And then, at 17, the shadow fell. A devastating diagnosis of mental illness. Trouble, hospital, home, into the depths again. Now, sustained by his mother’s unimaginably patient love, he aims to make his way back.”
“There may be a more exhausting journey than that of the mentally ill, their families, and their caregivers. But for those locked in the cycle of hopes raised and dashed, it’s hard to imagine what it could be.”
“No matter how he hates them, Michael Bourne has finally decided to stick with his meds. They may save his life, but at the price of not feeling fully alive. It is a cruel calculus, for him and for many.”
Scenes from a local bar in winter.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
Bryan Goldberg’s site for women was widely mocked when it launched a year ago. Today it has 15 million readers per month and some of its harshest early critics are on the payroll.
