Ranked #1
Martin Luther King Jr Is Still on the Case! by Garry Wills
Martin Luther King Jr Is Still on the Case! by Garry Wills
In 1968, just hours after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the future Pulitzer Prize–winning author Garry Wills—... Read more
14 Nov 2016
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30mins
Ranked #2
The String Theory, by David Foster Wallace
The String Theory, by David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace’s unforgettable portrait of tennis player Michael Joyce is as much about the intricate physics of h... Read more
21 Mar 2016
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29mins
Ranked #3
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, by Gay Talese
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, by Gay Talese
Fifty years after it was first published, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” remains the most influential and talked-about magaz... Read more
19 Sep 2016
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31mins
Ranked #4
The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald, then a struggling writer battling depression and alcoholism, published “The Crack-Up,” a r... Read more
17 Oct 2016
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33mins
Ranked #5
The American Male at Age Ten, by Susan Orlean
The American Male at Age Ten, by Susan Orlean
In 1992, writer Susan Orlean was sick of celebrity profiles. Instead, she wanted to do something bigger and much harder:... Read more
29 Aug 2016
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26mins
Ranked #6
The Death of Patient Zero, by Tom Junod
The Death of Patient Zero, by Tom Junod
“It was the moment we were waiting for and the moment we dreaded.” So begins “The Death of Patient Zero,” a story that b... Read more
8 Feb 2016
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30mins
Ranked #7
The Shooter, by Phil Bronstein
The Shooter, by Phil Bronstein
In March 2013, the man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden came forward to tell his story for the first time in “The Sho... Read more
16 May 2016
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23mins
Ranked #8
What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? by Richard Ben Cramer
What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? by Richard Ben Cramer
Richard Ben Cramer’s masterful profile of Ted Williams from 1986 is often cited as one of the greatest magazine stories ... Read more
18 Apr 2016
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27mins
Ranked #9
Old, by Mike Sager
Old, by Mike Sager
We will all get old one day. Mike Sager’s astonishingly intimate portrait of Glenn Sandberg, age ninety-two, is about wh... Read more
4 Apr 2016
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29mins
Ranked #10
America’s Most Powerful Lunch, by Lee Eisenberg
America’s Most Powerful Lunch, by Lee Eisenberg
For two decades, the Four Seasons was the epicenter of culture in America. Jackie Onassis, Henry Kissinger, and Nora Eph... Read more
11 Jul 2016
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22mins
Ranked #11
My Father’s Life, by Raymond Carver
My Father’s Life, by Raymond Carver
In Raymond Carver’s masterful short stories, what goes unspoken between characters—what can’t or won’t be articulated—ca... Read more
25 Jul 2016
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26mins
Ranked #12
The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce, by Tom Wolfe
The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce, by Tom Wolfe
It was a meeting of two American masters: Robert Noyce, who, in inventing the integrated computer chip and founding Inte... Read more
31 Oct 2016
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25mins
Ranked #13
What It Takes, by Richard Ben Cramer
What It Takes, by Richard Ben Cramer
Published in 1992, Richard Ben Cramer’s book What It Takes remains the richest and most detailed account of the personal... Read more
1 Aug 2016
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24mins
Ranked #14
Michael Bay, by Jeanne Marie Laskas
Michael Bay, by Jeanne Marie Laskas
In 2001, director Michael Bay was one of Hollywood’s most successful commercial filmmakers when he took on the daunting ... Read more
27 Jun 2016
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20mins
Ranked #15
Superman Comes to the Supermarket, by Norman Mailer
Superman Comes to the Supermarket, by Norman Mailer
Before anyone foresaw a time when a television celebrity could become president—hello, Cleveland—Norman Mailer wrote in ... Read more
18 Jul 2016
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25mins
Ranked #16
“I, Stalkerazzi” and “Angelina Jolie and the Torture of Fame,” by John H. Richardson
“I, Stalkerazzi” and “Angelina Jolie and the Torture of Fame,” by John H. Richardson
It’s hard to think of a profession more maligned than the paparazzi, but in 1998 Esquire writer at large John H. Richard... Read more
3 Oct 2016
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27mins
Ranked #17
My Father, the Bachelor, by Martha Sherrill
My Father, the Bachelor, by Martha Sherrill
Martha Sherrill’s father, Peter, rakish and handsome, was an irrepressible charmer and natural raconteur; when he died, ... Read more
22 Aug 2016
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28mins
Ranked #18
Edwin Moses, by Mark Kram
Edwin Moses, by Mark Kram
Between 1977 and 1987, Edwin Moses won 122 consecutive races in the men’s 400-meter hurdles—including his second Olympic... Read more
8 Aug 2016
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25mins
Ranked #19
Styron’s Choices, by Philip Caputo
Styron’s Choices, by Philip Caputo
When journalist Philip Caputo set out to profile William Styron in 1985, it was something of a dream assignment: Styron,... Read more
12 Sep 2016
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25mins
Ranked #20
The Falling Man, by Tom Junod
The Falling Man, by Tom Junod
Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September... Read more
6 Sep 2016
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33mins