For the last two editions of the Tournament of Books, our presenting sponsor Field Notes made up a special batch of Memo Books with the ToB mascot on the cover and a checklist of the Tournament books on the inside. And for every book purchased for $3, they kicked in
Brought into MS-13 as a boy, a Long Island teenager decided he'd had enough when the gang asked him to start going on murder trips. Now, after informing on his peers to the FBI, the US government wants to deport him back to El Salvador, where he&
Photographer Jon Mozo died while shooting one of the world's deadliest waves. Thirteen years later, his daughter, an accomplished photographer herself, swims out to the wave for the first time.
At Tokyo's Sushiya No Nohachi, a chef makes the world's smallest sushi. Via kottke.
The first supersonic transport to ever fly was actually Soviet-built, and not without problems. Getting the TU-144 built before the Concorde (and therefore proving Soviet superiority to the world) was allegedly a high priority for the Soviets. The plane was developed under a tight schedule and relied on
According to Popular Mechanics, the "Coastline Paradox" has been vexing researchers and cartographers since its discovery by mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson in 1951. The explanation for the paradox is surprisingly simple: unlike human-drawn geometrical shapes, a coastline is full of nooks and crannies made by nature. The
John Oliver doesn't stand a chance with Charlize Theron in any known or unknown universe, says world's smartest man.
Los Angeles is known generally for smog, but its precise arrival date is actually known: July 8th, 1943. A brief story from Unfiction about how the haze got its start.
While the world remembers Roger Bannister, look at where running's gone in the meantime: ultra-running in China's Changping Valley and Mt. Siguniang Scenic Park. See also: how a bad hangover turned nonathletic writer Graham Beck into an Iron Man.
A short movie in which the world's best longboarders try to ride the longest wave possible. See also, from this summer in the Paris Review: the great art critic Dave Hickey recalls his brief, doomed days as a teenage surfer in Los Angeles. I woke up in the
