Growing up among the tall waves and schoolyard bullies of Hawaii.

On surfer girls in Maui: the story that led to the film Blue Crush.

A profile of Ken Bradshaw, who at 45 surfed the tallest wave in recorded history.

A visit to the massive Northern California surf break.

The underground culture of big waves and wild times in 1961 Malibu, and the gang of teenage boys who worshiped at the feet of the beach’s dark prince, surfing legend and grifter Miki Dora.

Getting away from it all in Mexico.

On surf legend Eddie Aikau and the complicated history of Hawaii.

A trip to the French island of Réunion to report on a bloody battle between surfers and sharks.

On surfing, and surfing in San Francisco, and surfing with a San Francisco surfing fanatic.

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.

A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem.

Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?

Bonobos are celebrated as peace-loving, matriarchal, and sexually liberated. Are they?

A lifetime of restless isolation explained.

The People’s Republic learns to drive.

A postmodern murder mystery.

How the Mississippi lawyer who brought down Big Tobacco overstepped.

Learning how to go the distance.

A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence.

A nonconformist rapper’s second act.

The far-flung adventures of a tugboating family.

What a Texas town can teach us about health care.

Anatomy of a murder trial.

She was brilliant. Was she also a fraud?

My life as Keith Moon.

What separates the women from the men.

Rin Tin Tin and the making of Warner Bros.

How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire.

On the front lines of a burgeoning civil war.

Day by day, a city at war with the regime collects its dead.

A new group of breeders want to undomesticate the cat.

They thought that they’d found the perfect apartment. They weren’t alone.

The traumatized veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Africans who risk all to reach Europe look to an exiled priest as their savior.

Does the alternatives-to-incarceration industry profit from injustice?

The motley gang of L.A. teens that cat-burgled celebrities, sometimes repeatedly, in search of designer clothes, jewelry, and something to do.

Film: The Bling Ring

An orchid-enthusiast goes to battle in Florida.

Film: Adaptation

Nearly 20 years after its publication, the author revealed that this story, on the disco scene in Brooklyn, was a fake.

Film: Saturday Night Fever

The man who blew the whistle on big tobacco.

Film: The Insider

Adventures in bartending.

Film: Coyote Ugly

Six young men, a boat, and the worst gale in a century.

At age 22, the author went undercover at his old high school. Here’s what he found.

A young Brooklyn man attempts a bank robbery to finance his lover’s sex change surgery.

Film: Dog Day Afternoon

Hanging with surfer girls in Maui.

Film: Blue Crush

Drag racing in New York.

Film: The Fast and the Furious

At 25, Stephen Glass was a reporter wunderkind, regularly filing incredible pieces for the largest magazines. When suspicion fell on his sources, things started to really get strange. It wasn’t just sources and organizations he was inventing, but whole stories.

How the CIA used a fake science fiction film to sneak six Americans out of revolutionary Iran.

Film: Argo

Traveling with a sex tourist to the Uzbek city of Tashkent.

Cycles of boom and bust in the drilling town of Williston, N.D., as seen from the perspective of an itinerant dancer filling one of three slots at the only strip club in town, Whispers.

Entering her thirties single and adrift, the writer heads to San Francisco to spend time with Kink.com’s Princess Donna Dolore and attend a gangbang “where all the men were dressed as panda bears.”

Investigating San Francisco’s OneTaste, which promises personal and professional success through the practice of orgasmic meditation.

A visit to Tokyo’s first co-sleeping cafe, where one can pay a set fee to sleep next to a woman in 20 minute increments, though spooning, being patted on the head, and a change of pajamas are extra.

How Tim Armstrong bet AOL’s future on his own unprofitable baby, Patch.

How a pair of pharmaceutical companies set their prices.

The capitalist evangelism of Lean In.

A profile of Gina Rinehart, the richest person in Australia.

Ego, hubris, and the failure to adapt.