A story of endurance in the face of unimaginably brutal conditions.

The night when Terry Thompson let his zoo-worthy collection of big animals, including lions and a bear, into the wilds of Zanesville, Ohio before shooting himself in the head.

What happened after Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother were murdered in her home.

The strange saga of a 2009 Gary Oldman profile that his manager, Douglas Urbanski, aggressively sought to kill.

"Mr. Heath's motives are dishonest in the least...supposed 'journalism' at its very lowest...while Mr. Heath may find his sloppy reporting cute, in fact it is destructive, and he knows it...his out of context and uninformed pot shots...out of context swipes at me...stretching the most basic rules of journalism...in certain ways has aspects of a thinly disguised hit piece... a hole filled swiss cheese of wrong facts, misleading insinuations, and in general lazy, substandard, agendized non-reporting...again and again Mr. Heath attempts to turn the piece into a political piece...GQ has allowed Heath to go for the cheap shot..."

The French influence in Africa is on the wane, and the Chinese are coming.

Participating in the Dakar Rally.

The story of Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who walked off his base in Afghanistan only to be captured by the Taliban.

How the former Bush advisor is “reengineering the practice of partisan money management in hopes of drumming Barack Obama out of the White House.”

A survey of sex on a Saturday night in New York City.

A profile of “not just the toughest but the most corrupt and abusive sheriff in America.”

How Indians with the surname Patel came to own 1/3 of the motels in America.

In 1916, a down-on-its-luck traveling circus hung its star elephant.

The importance of the sports metaphor in the American consciousness and why Lewis Lapham didn’t join the C.I.A.

Alex Haley interviews the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s number two - Malcolm X - in a Harlem restaurant.

Inside the C Street house in Washington and the little-known spiritual group behind it.

The author joins his father’s work crew, gutting out foreclosed houses in Florida and interviewing their former residents.

A trip to the Russian baths helps author start to see the good in his terrible eyesight.

In the last decade, newsrooms across the country have adopted a “do more with less” strategy. It’s a kamikaze mission.

Pitching a no-hitter in the middle of a multi-day acid bender was only one of Dock Ellis’ many amazing exploits.

The story of two Canadian artificial intelligence visionaries who became bitter rivals and then both committed suicide in the same month.

How an aging trio of Irish ‘travelers’ criss-crossed America in a mobile home conning Home Depot out of over $1 million.

In the feral communities of Russia’s Far East, tiger poaching is among the few lucrative pursuits. This is the story of a tiger who fought back.

In Detroit, the aftermath of a reality-TV SWAT raid that killed a sleeping seven-year-old.