A 1980 profile of Nolan Ryan by Tony Kornheiser from Inside Sports, annotated 30 years later by Michael MacCambridge and Kornheiser. The first story in Grantland’s Director’s Cut series, which “looks back at classic works of sports journalism and gives the writers, athletes, and other figures involved in making the articles an opportunity to reflect on their work and recall some deleted scenes.”

After acting erratically and trying to skip out on a dinner bill, she was detained briefly in Malibu before being released in the middle of the night. Twenty-four years old and in an unfamiliar area, she had no car, no phone, and no wallet. A year later, her body was found in a nearby canyon. On the search for answers.

In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses. Searching the library of my college, I found Marx, Lenin, and Mao, but no Strauss, Voegelin, Hayek, or Friedman. I found every variety of socialist monthly, weekly, or quarterly, but not a single journal that confessed to being conservative.

A young Brit goes against the political grain.

When the battered body of a Cambridge Ph.D. student was found outside Cairo, Egyptian police claimed he had been hit by a car. Then they said he was the victim of a robbery. Then they blamed a conspiracy against Egypt. But in a digital age, it’s harder than ever to get away with murder.

He was a Georgetown-educated Native-American lawyer who’d left behind a career in D.C. to advocate on behalf of poor and minority populations in rural North Carolina. At the time of his 1988 murder, he was investigating ties between police and the local cocaine trade.

The author spent nearly 30 years looking into what really happened.

A trip to Scotland and an investigation of enduring belief.

Earlier this month, while China's leaders were staging a grandiose celebration of their revolution's 40th birthday, thousands of somber Hong Kong residents gathered for a dreary commemoration of their own. Far from the fireworks display in Beijing, Hong Kongers huddled in a rainstorm near the bronze statue of Queen Victoria, singing patriotic songs and listening to mournful poems dedicated to those who died in Tiananmen Square.

On a group of teenage believers raised in settlements on the West Bank:

They say it takes one generation to found a new language. These girls are a new language, believing that they belong to the land on which they were born, and sponsored by the government they despise, which pays for their roads and electricity.

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

A young writer grows up with Alice Munro.

The controversy-filled world of shipping pallets.

A profile of rapper Bun B, “the unofficial mayor of Houston.”

An oral history.

The story of a new pancreas.

On the palm trees of Los Angeles.

When adults like Billy Smolinski go missing, it’s hard to get the authorities involved.

On the narrative of sexual coercion.

Marital advice columns from the past.

At the bedside when a pregnancy ends.

Talking with the influential New York gallerist.

The life’s work of Cosmo editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown.

On “soldiers for credibility” and the tug of war over truth.

The author attempts to interview Grigori Perelman, a reclusive mathematical genius.

An interview with Pulitzer-winning food critic Jonathan Gold.

Trying to fix the Atlantic Ocean’s food chain.