“What could possibly be funnier than depositing a perfectly ridiculous, obviously false, fake cheque?”

In a posthumously published essay, Twain recounts dreams of a long-lost love.

“Transforming into an Administrative Jekyll for a certain amount of time every day limits the amount of time my Creative Hyde can come up with content to market and sell. Luckily, amphetamines have that problem tackled as well: when you’re using them, you don’t have to sleep… at all.”

This isn't an essay or simply a woe-is-we narrative about how hard it is to be a black boy in America. This is a lame attempt at remembering the contours of slow death and life in America for one black American teenager under Central Mississippi skies. I wish I could get my Yoda on right now and surmise all this shit into a clean sociopolitical pull-quote that shows supreme knowledge and absolute emotional transformation, but I don't want to lie.

The frenzied few days before the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.

An Englishman’s account of the first modern Olympic games.

Three years after her gold-medal performance – and amidst rumors of a fall from grace – the author travels to Transylvania to track down gymnast Nadia Comaneci. He also enjoys several drinks with her coach, Bela Karolyi.

Part of our Olympics primer, on the Longform blog.

Meeting Nick Drake, London, 1970.

A personal reflection on bird-watching and relationships.

What happens when a complete stranger becomes convinced you’re the Zodiac killer.

A veteran critic reviews 32 shows in 30 days.

On collecting books.

I have lived in books, for books, by and with books; in recent years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to live from books. And it was through books that I first realised there were other worlds beyond my own; first imagined what it might be like to be another person; first encountered that deeply intimate bond made when a writer's voice gets inside a reader's head.

How six different people live off six different, and wildly varying, incomes.

How the author became tangled up with an international con man who may or may not have murdered several people.

Remembering George Plimpton’s old-fashioned style.

Above all, he was a gentleman, one of the last—a figure so archaic, it could be easily mistaken for something else. No, my father’s voice was not an act, something chosen or practiced in front of mirrors: he came from a different world, where people talked differently, and about different things; where certain things were discussed, and certain things were not—and his voice simply reflected this.

Visiting his daughter in San Francisco, the author longs for food delivery in Manhattan.

A coffee shop owner finally gets to shut down his store.

On conspiracy theories in sports, from the ‘85 NBA draft lottery to Michael Phelps’ gold medal performance in the 100-meter butterfly.

The author recounts playing herself – best-selling author Sloane Crosley – on an episode of “Gossip Girl.”

“I turned to see Eva padding around the room, naked, dipping a small plastic wand into the bottle of bubble soap she’d bought at the market… Sometime in the far future, when I was lying on my deathbed, I said, this was the moment I wanted to remember.”

On the relationship between travel and photography.

As Playboy magazine moves to Los Angeles, the writer considers its place in the Midwest.

No other general interest magazine tried to reach readers in the wide swathe of land between New York and California. “It was a Midwestern magazine, designed for people there. If you wanted it to be hip, edgy, go toe-to-toe with GQ, you were making a mistake,” said Chris Napolitano, a former executive editor who began at Playboy in 1988.

The political fight over a new football stadium in Minnesota.

The author on his mother’s deteriorating health and the “price of longevity.”

A summer as a whorehouse Madame.

The author reflects on his mayoral run with Norman Mailer against John Lindsay.

At the bar one night a couple of weeks after the primary, I looked up from a drink and saw my face and Norman's face floating across the screen on the NBC First Tuesday show. It is a network thing, and they did a 20-minute look at our campaign. The show reinforced my opinion that Norman and I had some of the most terrific lows in the history of anything that ever took place in this city. And, perhaps, a couple of highs that could be recognized as time passes a bit. Like maybe colleges for years will be using the things Norman Mailer was saying out in the streets.