“The first point he makes several times is that his new album will appeal to everyone; the second is that he is a changed man who’s grown up and calmed down. All I can say with certainty is that Brown is a stranger to the concepts of modesty and consistency.”

In the past the only people who wrote autobiographies or memoirs were very important, those who had a crucial role in the history of their own country—Napoleon, Goethe—or were witness to major events or people who had singular, adventurous lives. Otherwise, it is ridiculous to write your autobiography.

In the basement of the White House, in an office with no windows, an MFA grad named Ben Rhodes is telling the story of America’s foreign policy.

In 1980, four American nuns were murdered in El Salvador. This is the story of how a young American official stationed there singlehandedly found the culprits.

Excerpted from Weakness and Deceit: America and El Salvador's Dirty War

A profile of Norman Lear, the producer behind All in the Family and The Jeffersons, who is still making TV at age 94.

“The Farsi Island mission was a gross failure, involving issues that have plagued the Navy in recent years: inadequate training, poor leadership, and a disinclination to heed the warnings of its men and women about the true extent of its vulnerabilities.”

“A story is a kind of biopsy of human life.”

Exploring the riddle of Morgellons disease: sufferers feel things crawling under their skin and hardly anyone believes them.

How the Pentagon makes “Koch Industries look like an organic farm” when it comes to toxic water contamination.

How to understand the real-world value of things that are worth nothing and everything at once.

On the 1,600-year-old text that suggests that Jesus, long believed to be celibate, was a married man.

How a Tulsa preacher used direct mail to create the American religious right.

Is Bryan Saunders a drug-inspired outsider genius, or just in need of intervention?

In 1945, a fire tore through the home of George and Jennie Sodder. Four children escaped; five vanished.

An internet pioneer loses hope in the promise of web culture.

An interview on craft.

A profile of the deadliest sniper in American history, who was murdered last month by a fellow soldier.

Robert Berman was a passionate and polarizing English teacher at the Horace Mann School. He is also accused of sexually abusing many of his devoted students.

The author visits Franklin County, Mississippi, where, according to census data, there are zero same-sex couples.

On “Operation Bambi,” the secret plan to oust “Today” show co-host Ann Curry.

The outing of a failed writer who spent years anonymously grinding axes on Wikipedia.

Women who left their careers to be stay-at-home mothers reflect on the decision ten years later.