A writer considers America as he dies.

On waiting tables.

A personal history of “America’s most misunderstood religion.”

Guns, race, and childhood in Mississippi.

On the shifting nature of time.

An interview with Maurice Sendak.

An interview with Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich.

An interview with a john.

An interview with Kate Boo.

An interview with Spike Lee.

Animal nature, human racism, and the future of zoos.

Vegetables are "blue" in Japanese and other observations on the uneasy relationship between color and language.

Part 1 • Part 2

On being the parent of a micro preemie.

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3

Ashlyn Blocker, 13, has a “congenital insensitivity to pain.”

A profile of Taylor Wilson, who achieved nuclear fusion at age 14.

The rise and fall of the “most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history.”

The story of William Morgan: American, wanderer, Cuban revolutionary.

In 1810, a freed slave named Tom Molineaux fought one of the most important bouts in boxing history.

The legacy of a secret Cold War program that tested chemical weapons on thousands of American soldiers.

The evolution of currency as “a complete abstraction.”

On the start of the high school football season in Odessa, Texas. An adaptation published alongside the release of Bissinger’s 1990 book of the same name, which led to the movie and the show.

Her suicide made headlines around the world after classmates were indicted on felony charges related to bullying, but the real story wasn’t that simple.

At age 22, the author went undercover at his old high school. An excerpt of the book that became the film.

Mr. Lindwall was the only high school teacher who understood him. Then Mr. Lindwall went to jail, and it was his turn to try to understand.

Sixteen years after graduating, an alumnus heads back to his old stomping grounds in Cleveland.

How two love-struck, type-A high school students almost got away with murder.

Navigating life as a brilliant teenage girl.

The profile of a 34-year-old woman named Charity Johnson who tricked people all over the country into believing she was still in high school.

An essay on a fatal car crash in the author’s youth.

The science behind why high school sucks.

An obsessive marine biologist gambles his savings, family, and sanity on a quest to be the first to capture a live giant squid.

A trip to a lobster festival leads to an examination of the culinary and ethical dimensions of cooking a live, possibly sentient, creature.

Stalking the disappearing bluefin tuna, the world’s most valuable wild animal.

A trip to Scotland and an investigation of enduring belief.

On the mysterious and moderately intelligent giant Pacific octopus.

A profile of a celebrity whale.

In 1992, a Chinese freighter tipped violently in a storm dumping a load of plastic floating infant toys—7,200 red beavers, 7,200 green frogs, 7,200 blue turtles, and 7,200 yellow ducks—to the open sea. This is their story.

In February 2010, a killer whale named Tilikum dragged his SeaWorld trainer into the pool and drowned her. It was the third time the orca had been involved in a death during his 27 years in captivity. This is his story.

The story of the loneliest whale in the world.