The Deep State
A profile of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, prime minister of Turkey.
Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi
The odyssey of Kim Jong-il’s personal chef.
Encounters with the Posthuman
On artists using their bodies to blur the line between human and machine.
The Confidence Economy
An interview with T.J. Jackson Lears, historian of the “charlatans and hucksters of the Gilded Age, the cagey, conniving street peddlers of what we’d rather think was a premodern world.”
Arming Syria’s Rebellion
In a Turkish hotel, veterans of the Libyan Revolution meet with their fractured Syrian counterparts to transfer know-how and heavy weaponry.
The Gut-Wrenching Science Behind the World’s Hottest Peppers
A trip to a pepper-eating contest in remote India.
Colum McCann’s Radical Empathy
A profile of the writer.
Plus: An excerpt from McCann's new novel, TransAtlantic. (via Longform Fiction)
Women As Bosses
“Some companies are beginning to allow women to take their management-training courses. A woman sitting in on an executive conference is less of a shock to the male than she was only a few years ago. A few big companies–R.C.A., the Home Life Insurance Co., and the New York Central, for example–have even ushered women into the board room.”
The Best Way to Read Longform
Longform for iPad delivers the latest picks from our editors, plus new articles from more than 80 of the world's best magazines, in an elegant, reader-friendly design. It's the perfect app for commutes, flights and Sunday afternoons.
Could California's Salmon Make a Comeback?
A fishery, an economy, and a way of life hang in the balance.
How A War Hero Became A Serial Bank Robber
An Iraq War veteran assuages his PTSD with bank heists.
Stephen King: The Fresh Air Interview
“The supernatural stuff doesn’t get to me anymore. But here’s the movie that scared me the most in the last 12 or 13 years: The movie opens with a woman in late middle-age, sitting at a table and writing a story. And the story goes something like, then the branches creaked in the - and she stops, and she says to her husband: What are those things? I can’t think of them. They’re in the backyard, and they’re very tall, and birds land on the branches. And he says, why, Iris, those are trees. And she says, yes, how silly of me. And she writes the word, and the movie starts. That’s Iris Murdoch, and she’s suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.”
A Mother Helps Son in His Struggle with Schizophrenia
A week in the life of Naomi and Spencer Haskell.
The Greatest Vendetta on Earth
Why the head of Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey hired a former CIA agent to ruin a freelance writer’s career.
From Basketball Bad Boy to Dubious Diplomat
A profile of Dennis Rodman today.
Access Hollywood
How Jeffrey Katzenberg became the Democrats’ kingmaker.
Margalit Fox is a senior obituary writer for The New York Times.
"You do get emotionally involved with people, even though as a journalist you're not supposed to. But as a human being, how can you not? Particularly people who had difficult, tragic, poignant lives. But there are also people that you just wish you had known. And, of course, the painful irony is that you're only getting to know them by virtue of the fact that it's too late."
Thanks to this week's sponsor, TinyLetter!
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Private Ceremonies
The author, an abortion counselor, was 40 and pregnant when a conflicted Catholic woman came to her clinic.
The Death and Life of Chicago
How the foreclosure crisis ignited a new form of activism in Chicago’s vacant homes.
Allegation Ends Coach's Career
A college football coach is falsely accused of producing and possessing child pornography.
The Legend of Buster Smith
A profile of the greatest checkers player of all time.
The Longform Guide to Adaptations
Argo, The Insider, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Dog Day Afternoon—a collection of great articles that became (mostly) great movies.</p>
Firestorm
The story behind the iconic photograph of the Holmes family, hiding in the water amidst violent Tasmanian bushfires.
The Borough Mystery: Dr William Kirwan
“Southwark’s petty thugs must have thought all their birthdays had come at once: a well-dressed toff stumbling round their borough in no state to defend himself, and with an alcoholic street whore as his only companion.”
Reconstructing a mysterious 1892 London murder.
