Fiction Pick of the Week: "Blacktop Wasteland [Excerpt]"
A high stakes drag race turns dangerous.
A high stakes drag race turns dangerous.
S.A. Cosby Jul 2020 20min Permalink
After Hurricane Maria, the number of women killed by their partners doubled. Survivors say the government’s misguided response has put more lives in danger.
Andrea González-Ramírez Gen Jun 2020 30min Permalink
When a group of Black mothers in Ohio were told to wait for school integration, they started marching every day in protest. They kept going for nearly 18 months.
Sarah Stankorb The Atavist Magazine Jun 2020 45min Permalink
Tessie Castillo, a journalist covering criminal justice reform, and George Wilkerson, a prisoner on death row in North Carolina, are two of the co-authors of Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row.
“I want other people to see what I see, which is that the men on death row are human beings. They’re incredibly intelligent and insightful and they have so many redemptive qualities...I don’t think I could really convey that as well as if they get their own voice out there. So I wanted this book to be a platform for them and for their voices.” –Tessie Castillo
“For me, writing was like a form of conversation with myself or with my past, like therapy. So I just chose these periods in my life that I didn’t really understand and that were really powerful and impactful to me, and I just sat down and started writing to understand them and make peace with them.” –George Wilkerson
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Jul 2020 Permalink
In a Los Angeles suburb where schools and parents faltered, the American Dream was replaced by drugs, neo-Nazism, and despair.
William Finnegan New Yorker Nov 1997 Permalink
Sean Quinn was once a billionaire folk hero, but then things turned very dark in the borderlands.
The chef, who died last year, was one of San Francisco’s culinary stars in the 1990s. She created a space for the city’s queer women to thrive in the kitchen.
Mayukh Sen Eater Jun 2020 15min Permalink
It starts with something small, and you ignore it. I remember when Jrue and I first started dating, right after college, and one of the women on my club team made a passing comment about him. “Jrue is the whitest black guy I know.”
Lauren Holiday The Players' Tribune Jun 2020 10min Permalink
Banned in Russia and cut by Condé Nast from the GQ website, this story (presented in full) details the intrigue behind the Moscow apartment bombings, blamed on Chechens, that allowed Putin to rapidly ascend to power.
Scott Anderson GQ Sep 2009 35min Permalink
Revisiting Edna Buchanan, America’s greatest police reporter.
Diana Moskovitz Popula Jun 2020 10min Permalink
In 1980, a bankrupt gambler came up with a plan to get his money back. He built an incredibly complex bomb, one that was impossible to defuse and that only he knew how to move, and snuck it into a Lake Tahoe casino with an extortion note demanding $3 million. Part of the plan worked. Part of it did not.
Adam Higginbotham The Atavist Magazine Jul 2014 1h25min Permalink
Discount chains are thriving — while fostering violence and neglect in poor communities.
Alec MacGillis ProPublica Jun 2020 30min Permalink
On generosity, selfishness, and organ donation.
Wency Leung Globe and Mail Jun 2020 20min Permalink
Here’s what’s become of them.
Melissa Fay Greene The Atlantic Jun 2020 35min Permalink
On learning to jog.
Haruki Murakami New Yorker Jun 2008 20min Permalink
John Ackerman has spent millions procuring a majority of the known caves in Minnesota, which add up to dozens of miles of underground passageways and likely make him the largest cave owner in the U.S. He collects and charts them in the name of preservation, but his controversial methods have created many opponents.
Matthew Sherrill Outside Jun 2020 20min Permalink
Dean Baquet is executive editor of The New York Times.
"I always tried to question what is the difference between what is truly tradition and core, and what is merely habit. A lot of stuff we think are core, are just habits. The way we write newspaper stories, that’s not core, that’s habit. I think that’s the most important part about leading a place that’s going through dramatic change and even generational change. You’ve got to say, here’s what’s not going to change. This is core. This is who we are. Everything else is sort of up for grabs."
Thanks to Mailchimp and Apple Books for sponsoring this week's episode.
Jun 2020 Permalink
The story of ‘Kai the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker.’
Jana G. Pruden Globe and Mail Jun 2020 20min Permalink
At 37, Brian Wallach was diagnosed with the fatal disease. So he tapped a lifetime of connections to give help and hope to fellow sufferers—while grappling with his own mortality.
Brian Barrett Wired Jun 2020 30min Permalink
For 40 years, the city’s lifeguard corps has been mired in controversy, and for 40 years it’s been run by one man: Peter Stein.
David Gauvey Herbert New York Jun 2020 35min Permalink
Complex grieving rituals in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.
Scholastique Mukasonga The New Yorker Jun 2020 25min Permalink
An outsider artist’s odyssey to the center of his daughter’s life.
Max Blau The Sunday Long Read Jun 2020 30min Permalink
The writer’s family saw an unmarked NYPD cruiser hit a Black teenager. He tried to find out how it happened, and instead found all of the ways the NYPD is shielded from accountability.
Eric Umansky ProPublica Jun 2020 15min Permalink
Inside an IRL cult built on Facebook memes and semen-drinking.
Emilie Friedlander, Joy Crane OneZero Jun 2020 Permalink
If true justice and equality are ever to be achieved in the United States, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black Americans.
Nikole Hannah-Jones New York Times Magazine Jun 2020 30min Permalink