Fiction Pick of the Week: "Roy Spivey"
A chance encounter with a movie star on an airplane.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
Whatsizface
Contemplating plastic surgery.
The Down and Dirty History of TMZ
How a lawyer from the Valley created a gossip empire.
"Then I Saw Them Everywhere. Children’s Belongings Were Everywhere.”
How the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 rippled around the world, from the battlefield of Ukraine to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to the White House.
Burger King Is Run by Children
The CEO is 32. The CFO is 28. Their startup is the second-largest burger chain in the country.
Sequenced in the U.S.A.
A tenth of Kannapolis, North Carolina, residents were laid off after the local textile mill closed. A billionaire bought the mill and turned it into a mecca for biotechnology and life sciences research. Now many residents are human research subjects.
Temple of Gloom
Why the second Indiana Jones was so dark.
Brain Games
The world’s leading scientists try to solve climate change.
Sponsored
Roger Angell, Baseball's Best Writer, Gets His Due
On Saturday, more than 50 years after he started writing about the game, Roger Angell will be honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. If you're unfamiliar with Angell's work, here's where to start: The Summer Game, the first of his three incomparable collections of baseball writing for The New Yorker.
Our friends at Open Road Integrated Media have made the book available for 80% off through the weekend. And they've been generous enough to share an excerpt with Longform, "The Interior Stadium," a 1971 classic in which Angell captures the timelessness of the game. "Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly," he writes. "Keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.”
Get your copy of The Summer Game through Sunday for 80% off.
The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble
“You Palestinians can never see the fucking big picture.”
Islands in the Stream
An ode to the Bee Gees' strange, successful career.
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah has written for The Believer, The LA Review of Books, Transition and The Paris Review. "If He Hollers Let Him Go," her essay on Dave Chappelle, was a 2014 National Magazine Award finalist.
"So the stakes are high. I’m not just writing this to write. I’m writing because I think there’s something I need to say. And there’s something that needs to be said. ... What I hope is that a young kid or an older person will see that you have choices, that you don't have to accept what people hand to you. That you have control."
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.
Celebrity Rabbi, Heal Thyself
Who is Shmuley Boteach, former reality TV star and author of Kosher Sex?
You Are Now Entering the Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann
A profile of author William T. Vollmann.
The Unbelievable Life and Death of Michael C. Ruppert
The lonely death of a godfather of the conspiracy theory movement.
Our Favorite Serial Killer Articles
From the Longform archive, more than 30 picks on Charles Manson, the Son of Sam, Ted Bundy and more.</p>
The Marquise de Brinvilliers
On Marie-Madeline Marguerite, a 1600s French serial killer.
This is the second installment in The Hairpin's "Lady Killers" series. Previously: "The Blood Countess."</em></p>
The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect
From Word to smartphones.
Dreams Incorporated
Living the Amway life.
Our 25 Favorite Unlocked New Yorker Articles
The New Yorker has lifted its paywall on stories published since 2007. The following picks are available free for the first time.
Kanye West: A Brand-New Ye
“Like they said in Step Brothers: Never lose your dinosaur. This is the ultimate example of a person never losing his dinosaur. Meaning that even as I grew in cultural awareness and respect and was put higher in the class system in some way for being this musician, I never lost my dinosaur.”
Survivor No. 3
A day after swimming in an Arkansas water park, Kali Harding was diagnosed with a brain-eating amoeba that kills 99% of the people infects. This is the story of how she survived.
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“Where Did You Come From? How Did You Get Here?”
Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of the horrific crash of Flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa. The plane burst into flames, then into pieces. Nobody was expected to survive. Somehow, 184 people did.
Excerpted from Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival.
Sana'a
A trip to the capital of Yemen.
Awakening the Giant
Y.A. Tittle, an 87-year-old Hall of Fame quarterback with dementia, travels to his hometown for the last time.
