ART
- Jack Gilbert’s Paris Review Interview
- A poet who spent his words and time on beauty reveals his thoughts on his work, the craft, and what we’re all looking for in life.
- Bird-Watcher
- New Yorker profile on Charlie Parker DJ
- You Are Now Entering The Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann
- One of the most prolific living American authors makes for a profile that brings about the age-old question of the line between genius and madman.
- Tasmanian Devil
- The story of a high-art, concept museum being put in a country without precedence
BUSINESS
- What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried To Be Steve Jobs
- Tale of heightened expectations and getting ahead of oneself
- Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla
- See above; but with massive success
- How A Michigan Farmer Made $4m Smuggling Pez Containers
- Wild tale from a craze in the 90s. Proves Playboy does have some great journalism
- Inside The Mad, Mad World of Tripadvisor
- What happens when you leave a world-recognized brand in the hands of a partyboy 20something?
CURRENT EVENTS
- The Case for Reparations
- Probably the most talked about piece of 2015. Deep, tough, and shocking — Coates makes a case that’s been heard before in a completely new light.
- The Rubber Room
- Headline making New Yorker piece exposing some serious faults in the NYC public school system when it comes to teachers.
- The Strange Case of Anna Stubblefield
- Unsettling and challenging piece on what it means to be conscious and functioning. Great storytelling from the NYT that goes deep into the heart of love and intelligence.
- Whatsoever Things Are True
- Longform piece on Chicago murder 30 years ago and the fallout from one singular case. The reason that IL doesn’t have the death penalty stems from this case in which (potentially) two innocent men sat for decades in prison.
- Why are palo alto’s kids killing themselves?
- Sad and revealing look into the youth of America’s supposed promised land.
PEOPLE PROFILES
- Mr. Brown
- On the prolific James Brown
- The Astonishing Rise of Angela Merkel
- Profiling the most powerful woman in the world
- Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
- Updike’s famed portrait of Ted Williams — cross-listed here as one of the greatest sports articles ever penned too.
- The Duke And His Domain
- 1957 profile on Marlon Brando
- The Invention of Muhammed Ali
- About the boxer formerly known as Cassius Clay
- The Man Who Got America High
- Punny title but great read. A man most haven’t heard of ran a ring of private airlines through the 70s that — you guessed it — helped Americans get high in more way than one.
- The Squid Hunter
- What it means to chase something that might not exist — and dedicate every second to it.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT
- The Benjamin Franklin Effect
- Perhaps my favorite article out there. Cognitive dissonance and the danger of not understanding the cause<>effect of your brain. Once you know that, you can start playing mind games with yourself to control it. A must read to understand the concept and your constructed self.
- Abundance Without Attachment
- Good take and mantra in living in the modern world
- The Self is Moral: Why Moral Character Is The Key To Personal Identity
- One of the best philosophy articles in recent years (at least that’s accessible). Asks whether it’s truly our moral compass that defines who we are. And makes that affirmative point quite well.
- Social Connections Matter More Than Wealth—And Your Brain Knows It
- Fairly self-explanatory.
- What’s the Point Of A Professor?
- Interesting question. Interesting take.
- The Innocent Man, Part One
- True crime story written in great detail. Fun to read, horrible to remember it’s non-fiction.
- The Work We Do While We Sleep
- Part of the New Yorker’s series on sleep. Hint: we don’t know much but we’re getting there.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
- A New Theory on Distraction
- It seems that we’re more distracted than ever before. But is that true? And what is distraction really mean anyway?
- What The Web Said Yesterday
- Where all the noise of the internet goes to sleep and gets stored
- And Then Steve Said, ‘Let There Be an iPhone’
- Great piece from behind-the-scenes at the launch event for the first ever iPhone.
- The Shut-In Economy
- New apps and services make life easier than ever. The world is at our doorstep. But is that such a good thing?
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