An oral history of the oral history master.

A classic piece of participatory journalism, a genre Plimpton basically invented, on his very brief tenure as quarterback of the Detroit Lions.

On Plimpton and the founders of The Paris Review.

An interview years in the making.

A father and his 9-year-old daughter watch Harvard play Yale in football.

Plimpton’s son on his dad’s signature style.

In January 1966, the month In Cold Blood was published, Truman Capote sat down with Plimpton to discuss the new art form he liked to call “creative journalism.”

A profile of a previously unknown rookie pitcher for the Mets who dropped out of Harvard, made a spiritual quest to Tibet, and somewhere along the line figured out how to throw a baseball much, much faster than anyone else on Earth.

A profile of a young Dylan and the early ’60s folk scene.

”I don’t want anybody to be hung-up … especially over me, or anything I do.”

The making of Blonde on Blonde in Nashville.

On the visionary architects who, along with an extremely helpful tax break, gave birth to the American mall.

A writer tries to make sense of a national landmark.

Over the last five years, so-called “sweepstakes cafes,” known in Las Vegas and elsewhere as “casinos,” have opened in malls from Florida to Massachusetts. On the law-bending rise of a $10 billion industry.

The soap opera of an off-brand mall in West Houston.

How Hollister employs the dark art of “immersive retail” to bring the allure of the mall to its flagship store in New York.

Spending time with the Tonya Harding Fan Club in the wake of the assault on Nancy Kerrigan.

If you walk into New York’s best restaurants without a reservation, what does it take to get a table?

David Chang’s manic quest for a flawless restaurant.

An essay on waiting tables.

An interview with Alan Stillman, who in 1965 founded T.G.I. Friday’s, the first singles bar in America.

Mysterious, man-made “natural flavor” explains why most fast food—indeed, most of the food Americans eat—tastes the way it does. An early excerpt from Fast Food Nation.

A minute-by-minute account of what it takes to run a restaurant.

America’s underground Chinese restaurant workers.

The creator of the California-based food chain kills his mother, sister and, finally, himself.

How Guzmán was captured the last time.

The Sinaloa cartel was flooding cocaine across the border. The DEA was listening. A 4-part series based on hundreds of pages of transcripts from intercepted calls, court testimony, and investigative reports.

El Chapo and the ruins of the Mexican-American border.

On a Mexican newsweekly brave enough to cover El Chapo.

A report from El Chapo’s battle for Guadalajara.

On Sinaloa’s multi-billion dollar business model.