When Chicago’s Stevens Hotel opened in 1927, it was the biggest hotel in the world. By the time it was closed, it had bankrupted and caused the suicide of a member of the Stevens’ family (which included a seven-year-old future Justice John Paul Stevens), and changed the city forever.
A behind-the-scenes look at a U.S. attack against civilians near Khod: “the high-tech wizardry would fail in its most elemental purpose: to tell the difference between friend and foe.”
She is an unknown struggling writer. Her boyfriend is Jonathan Franzen.
Driving cross-country in a chemical tanker.
On Ray Dalio, who built the world’s biggest hedge fund by running it like a cult.
On billionaire financier Lynn Tilton and her quest to become a public figure.
The strange life of Boston Corbett, the soldier who killed John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
At times, Mr. Hsieh comes across as an alien who has studied human beings in order to live among them.
A profile of the Zappos CEO.
How and why Zappos works.
The story of dog-scent lineup innovator Keith Pikett and the not-so-scientific science behind forensics.
After a final film, Kevin Smith is going to retire to a life of podcasting and speaking tours. Or so he says.
Manny Ramirez is a deeply frustrating employee, the kind whose talents are so prodigious that he gets away with skipping meetings, falling asleep on the job, and fraternizing with the competition.
An insider history of the fall of Myspace; from Rupert Murdoch calling Facebook a mere “communications utility” to the disastrous 2006 deal with Google that demanded huge pageviews and ads everywhere, and finally the present day ruins of a titan.
On Christian Marclay’s film The Clock.
The emergence of a radio phenomenon popular amongst young demographic believed lost to interactive distractions.
The odyssey of trying to have an illegal abortion 1962.
An essay on African-American Republicans.
How France’s public schools became the battleground in a culture war.
A private investigator asks a magazine to write a puff piece on his business. The journalist finds a real story.
In 1991, Frank Sterling confessed to a crime he didn’t commit. His story highlights a common – and controversial – method of police interrogation.
A site for handcrafts flirts with an IPO.
A profile of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Text from the books and Foster Wallace’s corresponding annotations:
Along with all the Wittgenstein, Husserl and Borges, he read John Bradshaw, Willard Beecher, Neil Fiore, Andrew Weil, M. Scott Peck and Alice Miller. Carefully.
Ramón González’s middle school is a model for how an empowered principal can transform a troubled school. But can he maintain that momentum when the forces of reform are now working against him?
