On the modern era’s answer to James Baldwin.

Visiting with the Christian fighters defending Iraq’s Nineveh Plains.

Tracking down the very best in Grateful Dead concert concessions.

The story behind an online gamer’s suicide.

Searching for meaning at Baldwin’s soon-to-be-demolished home in France.

A jailhouse interview.

Doing mushrooms in space.

Rodeo bulls and the boys who ride them.

On the lawyers who defend Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Jared Loughner and Whitey Bulger.

“Charlize Theron is anxious. Not greatly anxious, not distraught, but still. Anxious.”

A last-minute trip to Sri Lanka.

A reporter returns to My Lai.

An interview with the author, who died Monday.

Arthur Mondella took over his family’s maraschino cherry business reluctantly. But once he had it, he started a second enterprise. Behind an unmarked roll-down gate, behind some of his prized luxury cars, behind a pair of closet doors, behind a set of button-controlled shelves, behind a fake wall and down a ladder in a hole in the floor, Mondella built a 2,500-square-foot marijuana factory. When the police finally found it, he shot himself.

The 1826 kidnapping – and murder – that begat America’s obsession with Masons.

On Witanhurst, the dilapidated London mansion whose ownership is cloaked in mystery.

The search for an anonymous amateur philosopher.

Last Fall, America’s favorite focus drug suddenly went into short supply.

How Sherwin Shayegan pulled off a 3,000-mile, piggyback ride-fueled road trip.

Two men named Nathan committed murders. Only one received a death sentence.

Michelito Lagrevere is a 12-year-old Mexican matador sensation.

Traditions, feuds, and controversies in British pest control.

When the U.S. Postal Service was a hotbed for innovation.

How a jazz pianist disappeared into his music.

A woo-hoo heard around the world.