An oral history of Freaks and Geeks.

On a business that sells packaged pre-sliced apples as snack food.

Reverse engineering the details of a murder that took place in St. Louis on Christmas Night in 1895 from over a century of popular song.

On the power of youth literature.

Los Angeles’ Wolvesmouth and the unlicensed dining industry.

A profile of Huell Howser, the happiest man on TV.

The many reasons Lost shouldn’t have happened.

He came home from Vietnam, wrote the novel that became Full Metal Jacket, was nominated for an Oscar and riding high. Then he got thrown in jail for stockpiling stolen library books, started drinking, cut off his friends and fled to a remote Greek island. He never made it back.

A profile of the late actor.

An oral history of the Dr. Dre album.

Trevell Coleman wasn’t sure whether he’d killed a man. But after 17 years, he needed to find out.

The Grateful Dead’s afterlife.

An interview with the Japanese artist, who has resided in a mental institution since committing herself in 1975.

“If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find “reality” a bit of a disappointment.”

A field report from Electric Daisy Carnival, a three-night bacchanal in the Las Vegas desert attended by “100,000 wasted hedonists scantily dressed in furry underwear.”

In the Swiss town of Meiringen, where an obsessed group of ‘pilgrims’ painstakingly recreate the death of Sherlock Holmes.

How a loathsome band makes gobs of money.

Browsing the stacks with The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda.

The backstory of “The Duke in His Domain,” Truman Capote’s 1957 New Yorker profile of Marlon Brando.

The rise of One Direction fanfiction that imagines the band members in relationships – with each other.

A profile of RZA, hip-hop artist and kung fu film director.

An essay on Jimmy Savile, British television and child sexual abuse.

Blockbusters in the age of “corporate irony.”

The future of beer behemoth AB InBev.

On the novelist’s experience in movie-making.