Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of The Skies Belong to Us.

"It was this big review in The New York Times and I was terrified that it was going to say something awful about the book or about me as a writer. And my son said to me — he's 5, I should say — "If it's bad, you won't die." That's a good point, you know? So I always think of that when I pick up a new review and take that risk of someone slamming something that I've genuinely poured my heart and soul into. You'll live to fight another day."

Thanks to TinyLetter and the The Literary Reportage concentration at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode.

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The Bin Laden Files

Following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the Pakistani government set up a commission to establish how U.S. forces could have violated Pakistani sovereignty without repercussions, and how Bin Laden came to reside secretly in Pakistan for so long. This is what they found.

  1. The Bin Ladens' Life on the Run

    The day-to-day monotony and close calls of Bin Laden’s years on the lam.

  2. Bin Laden Raid Reveals 'State Failure'

    How Pakistan helped allow Bin Laden to go undetected for so long.

  3. The Raid: How It Happened

    The story of the night Bin Laden was killed, as told by those in the crosshairs.

Building New York's Subway

“Morning and night the hordes of clerks and stenographers and business men who fill the offices of down-town New York have poured across Newspaper Row and City Hall Park with scarcely a glance at the labor progressing underfoot that is going to bring them so many minutes nearer their work in the morning, and at night so many minutes nearer their play.”