On the origin of the essay.

On what you do and don’t learn in medical school.

Cemetery field recordings reveal terrifying messages.

The Wikipedia origin story.

The daily deals company turned down a $6 billion offer from Google and went public. Now its stock is down 80% and its founder/CEO has been fired. On Groupon’s failed strategy and tenuous future.

A profile of the writer.

Plus: An excerpt from McCann's new novel, TransAtlantic. (via Longform Fiction)

“For the first few days after the surgery, it was difficult to separate out my newly implanted sense from the bits of pain and sensation created by the trauma of having the magnet jammed in my finger.”

How conspiracy theory links the internet’s first spam (a series of randomly generated words with the subject line Markovian Parallax Denigrate) with a woman who posed as a CIA agent and was convicted of receiving funds from Saddam Hussein’s government.

On Dylan Yount, a man who jumped from a San Francisco building, and the people who watched, recorded and, in some cases, encouraged his suicide.

How “Count” Victor Lustig, one of America’s great con men, worked his scams.

Part 1 of “The Mastermind,” a serialized investigation of Paul Le Roux, who went from brilliant programmer to vicious cartel boss to highly protected U.S. government asset.

Two years ago, the fitness guru abruptly disappeared from public life. His friends worry that he’s being held against his will inside his Hollywood Hills mansion, or something even worse.

How America’s first serial killer terrorized the city of Austin on Christmas Eve, 1885.

A dispatch from the campaign trail and a new understanding of America.

“Those who were born in the U.S.S.R. and those born after its collapse do not share a common experience,” wrote Svetlana Alexievich, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2015. “It’s like they’re from different planets.”

Will Lacey was just a baby when doctors diagnosed a rare form of cancer and told his family there was only one end. Nobody then could imagine the journey ahead, from hospital rooms to board rooms, research labs to government offices, a furious race between hope and death.

In 1939, acting on a tip and clues from The Iliad, archaeologists unearthed King Nestor’s palace on Pylos. Recently, another discovery in Pylos, the grave of an even earlier soldier, could change our entire understanding of how western civilization developed.

Recounting an appearance on Letterman.

For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, check out Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.

A young man's connection with a circle-drawing, perceptive young woman.

For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, check out Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.

The author on how he was conned by Christian Gerhartsreiter, aka "Clark Rockefeller."

Excerpted from Blood Will Out.

How Brad Katsuyama, a trader at the sleepy Royal Bank of Canada, discovered that the stock market was rigged and assembled a team to change it.

Adapted from Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.

A profile of silent film comedian Buster Keaton:

The story of his life seems in its twists and dives borrowed from his movies, survival demanding a pure lack of sentiment.

No one knew how Suzanne Jovin ended up in a wealthy neighborhood away from Yale’s campus in New Haven, or why she was brutally stabbed on the sidewalk, apparently by someone she knew. The only suspect that police named was her thesis advisor.

David Headley helped plot the Mumbai terror attacks. Now his best friend is on trial for conspiring with him. The prosecution’s key witness: David Headley. The story of an informant trying to save his own life from the witness stand.

A profile of Vogue Creative Director André Leon Talley.

From our guide to haute couture genius at Slate.