A father and his daughter’s brain tumor.

How Marv Marinovich’s plan to engineer his son into the greatest quarterback of all time backfired.

The writer on his father’s religious devotion to personal style. Among the maxims: “the turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear”; “there is nothing like a fresh burn”; and “always wear white to the face.”

Paul Wayment made a profound mistake, left his 2-year-old son alone in his truck as he tracked deer in the wilderness. The boy was gone when he returned. The story of a collective struggle to find a just punishment.

Swept out to sea by a riptide, a father and his 12-year-old autistic son struggle to stay alive. As night falls, the dad comes to a devastating realization—if they remain together, they’ll drown together.

On the talent, ego, and late father of Bryant Gumbel.

It’s often said one should not speak ill of the dead. At Richard Nixon’s passing, Thompson chose not to observe the custom.

In an odd twist of fate, the author predeceased the subject, Elizabeth Taylor, by six years.

White, several years past the publication of Stuart Little, finds himself “in the role of pig’s friend and physician,” but also its chronicler.

How do you memorialize a monster?

The case against the New York Times post-Sept. 11 series, “Portraits of Grief.”

Mr. Miller, a Canadian blogger, published this posthumously.

A young Allen writes jokes for supper club comedians, decides he will never make it as a performer and then does, idolizes and is snubbed by Mort Sahl, and develops the comic persona which will make him a star.

Allen, a huge basketball fan, wrote this profile of his favorite player.

Didion on what she calls Allen’s “serious” movies.

Allen, in his own words, on his work.

A sympathetic profile, written as Allen hit 70.

Lessons learned from the complete Allen catalog, save Midnight in Paris.

Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was so prolific that even he doesn’t know how many he killed.

Sixteen years ago, William Dranginis saw Bigfoot. He’s still trying to prove it.

Three weeks after Hannah Emily Upp, a 23-year-old Spanish teacher, disappeared while on a run, she was found alive, floating in New York Harbor. Upp had no idea how she got there.

On the Holocaust origins of a lampshade pulled from the ruins of Katrina.

Odessa High School students know her as “Betty,” a ghost that haunts the auditorium at night. But there’s more to the story.

On Joe Francis—creator of “Girls Gone Wild,” assaulter of reporters, creep extraordinaire.

He’s the first kid to be featured on the side of a milk carton—and his father thinks he knows who abducted him from a New York City street in 1979.

From “comely heiress” to “armed terrorist,” an overview of the Patty Hearst kidnapping published weeks after her debut as a bank robber.

Meet Rick Strawn, the man who’ll abduct your problem child for a fee.

Rohde was kidnapped while reporting in Afghanistan. His story—in five parts—in his own words.

Elizabeth Smart, age 14, was kidnapped from her bedroom in a Salt Lake City suburb. She was found nine months later with an itinerant preacher and his wife. Theories on why it took so long.

Several American men working in the oil industry are kidnapped on the job in Ecuador.

Did Bruno Hauptmann really kidnap the Lindbergh baby? An overview of the case amidst a bunch of arguing scholars.

A suddenly haunting profile of Joe Paterno, living legend.

An 11-month investigation ends with a booster, now in prison for a Ponzi scheme, going public with details of how he spent millions on college athletes from 2002 to 2010.

The gambler responsible for a point-shaving scandal at Boston College, now a government witness, offers a nuts-and-bolts explanation of how one goes about fixing college sports.

An infamous article on the social dynamics on the Duke campus—it opens at a foam party thrown by a frat—published at the height of the lacrosse team scandal.

A profile of UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who at the time appeared to be losing his 19-year-long battle with the NCAA.

The case for paying college athletes.

A profile of Marlon Brando, age 33, holed up in a hotel suite in Kyoto where he was filming Sayonara.

It was the middle of the day in the steamy Philippine jungle and the sun was merciless. Director Francis Ford Coppola, dressed in rumpled white Mao pajamas, was slowly making his way upriver in a motor launch.

A “fanatical Lynch fan from way back,” David Foster Wallace visits the set of Lost Highway, never actually talks to the director, and writes a profile.

Inside the five-year (and counting) production of the Ilya Khrzhanovsky film Dau.

In Austin in 1973, politicos and hippies could get together and create violent, visionary horror films for $60,000. So they did. The story of how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre got made:

The battle to make The Godfather pitted director Francis Ford Coppola against producers including Robert Evans, and the production itself against the real-life mob.

An oral history of Goodfellas.

How Warren Beatty seduced the studios into making the comedy Ishtar, which set the modern bar for cinematic debacles.

A profile of the late actor-turned NRA president.

Adapting from his book of the same name, Chivers traces how the design and proliferation of small arms, originating from the Pentagon and the Russian army, rerouted the 20th century.

Most military experts agree that robots, not people, will inevitably do the fighting in ground wars. In Tennessee, a high-end gunsmith is already there. The story of Jerry Baber and his robot army.

How two twentysomethings, equipped with the Internet and weed, ruled the lucrative world of weapons trading … for a while.

On America’s relationship with the right to bear arms, from the founding fathers to the Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan.

The author sits down with notorious (and recently convicted) arms dealer Viktor Bout, Bout’s brother, and a close friend.

In the days after 9/11, Mark Stroman went on a revenge killing spree in Texas. Rais Bhuiyan survived and, a decade later, tried to stop Stroman’s execution.

On one of the great final acts in sports history.

On the self-inflicted torture of Rick Barry.

On the brilliance, and elusiveness, of the great Knicks point guard.

The most successful player in league history, Bill Russell, was also its most candid.

A rare glimpse of Kobe Bryant’s nonstaged private life.

The story of Billy Ray Bates, who had the talent to be an all-time great, but drank himself out of the league and ended up playing in the Philippines, where he had a few wild years before booze ended his career for good.

On the royal family.

On being waterboarded.

On the cult of Winston Churchill and his legacy in the aftermath of 9/11.

An early foreign report on the state of the African continent.

An excerpt from his memoir Hitch-22, about his dreadful years at boarding school.

A take down of the press corps and the modern presidential campaign, published on the eve of the ’88 election.

On the press buses, nicknamed Bullshit 1 and Bullshit 2, following John McCain.

Manny Pacquiao, still in his fighting prime, on the campaign trail for a congressional seat in the remote, untamed Southern province of the Philippines that spawned him.

A first-time candidate working out his public identity early in his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.

The nihilistic confessions of a presidential campaign reporter who covered Giuliani, Huckabee, and Clinton for Newsweek.

The strengths and limitations of the Republican frontrunner.

Newt Gingrich’s brief turn at the top in Iowa.

What happened when Toto Constant, Haiti’s most notorious warlord, resurfaced as a real estate agent in Queens.

Tracking down a Congolese warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court for conscripting child soldiers proves surprisingly easy; he’s a military official and owns a bar, dairy, and mansion.

In which three American journalists—the author plus Sebastian Junger and John Falk—almost accidentally capture the world’s most wanted war criminal. The basis for the 2007 film The Hunting Party.

After failing to capture Josef Mengele in Argentina when he was nearly in grasp, an international effort was mounted to determine whether a skull was indeed his, which would mean an end to the search for major Nazi war criminals.

An Ethiopian torture victim happens upon her torturer working as a bellhop in an Atlanta hotel.

Excerpts from Live From New York, an oral history of SNL.

SNL in its grim 20th season through the lens of first-year (and only-year) cast member Janeane Garofalo.

A pre-30 Rock profile of Tina Fey.

Eight years removed from the show, Murray was at the peak of his box office power and living in a secluded farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley.

How one of the most maligned cast members in SNL history ended up a talking head on Fox News.

A sweeping, honest interview published just before Murphy announced he wouldn’t host the Oscars included his first public comments on SNL in years.

A story in the student newspaper about a dropout and a few friends who were in California working on something called TheFacebook, which after a year had 1.5 million users.

One of the first major profiles of Zuckerberg, as Facebook was beginning the transition away from only serving college students and trying to figure out a way to compete with the then-king of social networks, MySpace.

And the Facebook origin story becomes a point of contention.

Two unusual themes: Zuckerberg sounding New Agey and Facebook seeming financially vulnerable.

A profile of COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Zuckerberg’s letter to new investors this week.

As the war begins to end, Iraqis confront a broken country.

As U.S. troops departed, Baghdad in ruins.

Inside the safe houses where Syrian youth protesters have retreated since the uprising.

An account of captivity.

An interview with Shadid.

Searching for Jimmy Robinson, a boxer who fought Muhammad Ali in 1961, then disappeared.

An investigation into the disappearance of 24-year-old Rebecca Coriam from aboard the Disney Wonder opens the strange and insular world of cruise employees, who vanish mysteriously at alarming rates.

In 1938, Gaines was the catalyst for a pivotal civil rights court case. One year later, he was gone.

The father of the first kid featured on a milk carton thinks he knows who kidnapped the him 30 years ago.

The search for Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, began in 1945. The unending quest tore his family apart.

In 1926, at the age of 12, Barbara Follett published a critically acclaimed novel. Fourteen years later, she disappeared.

Three Dallas prostitutes were found dead in as many months. Charles Albright might be the last person you’d suspect—unless you knew about his unique, lifelong obsession.

How two love-struck, type-A high-schoolers almost got away with murder.

A charming assistant funeral home director in a small Texas town murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town’s sympathy as his case goes to trial.

Lance Butterfield was the captain of the football team, had a 4.0 GPA and a girl he loved. It wasn’t enough for his dad. And then his dad became too much for him.

Peggy Jo Tallas, a soft-spoken bachelorette, spent much of her adult life doing two things: taking care of her ailing mother and robbing bank after bank dressed as a pudgy, bearded cowboy.

The story of Dean Corll and his accomplices, who killed more than 20 teenage boys in the Heights neighborhood of Houston in the early 1970s, and the families searching for their missing sons.

A game called Spacewar is developed by early computer engineers in their spare time, improved in university comp-sci labs, and ultimately made available in coffeeshops for 10 cents per game.

Advice from 1982 on how and why one should buy a personal computer.

The Silcon Valley origin story.

A conversation with a 29-year-old Jobs.

Ted Nelson’s Xanadu project was supposed to be the universal, democratic hypertext library that would help human life evolve into an entirely new form. Didn’t turn out that way.

A 42,000-word, three-continent spanning “hacker tourist” account of the laying of the (then) longest wire on earth, FLAG, fiber-optic link around the world.

An early take on the dark side of cyberspace.

The definitive story of a ubiquitous software. PowerPoint’s origins, its evolution, and its mind-boggling impact on corporate culture.

An oral history of Motown Records, its founder Berry Gordy, and 1960s Detroit.

On wandering through the city’s “post-American” landscape.

A response to the national media’s mourning.

On Mayor Dave Bing’s plan to demolish 10,000 abandoned homes throughout the city.

Detailing the rise and fall of the most prolific star in the history of porn, Sager’s 12,500-worder helped inspire Boogie Nights.

A self-published snapshot of the industry following the Great Recession.

The former entertainment editor at Hustler describes the psychological impact of his half-decade as a porn reviewer.

The story of an appearance by porn star Sasha Grey—referred to here as “Tasha”—on The Tyra Banks Show.

An essay on what Internet porn has done to American sexuality.

Three years after skipping town, Bulger was frustrating investigators and endearing himself to neighbors all over the country. He made a particularly good impression with Gautreaux family in Grand Isle, Louisiana, where he spent the winter in 1995 and 1996 with the girlfriend who led to his eventual capture in 2011.

A view of the Barefoot Bandit from his hometown.

Can a writer disappear in America for a month with a $5,000 bounty on his head? Ratliff tried to find out, and found himself with an unnerving amount of free time.

The story of how Benjamin Holmes, wanted by the FBI for arson, spent two decades hiding in plain sight. (Also the story of how, when Holmes finally came back to see his wife, she shot him.)

On the run in Canada with Randy Quaid and his wife Evi as the try to evade “the Hollywood Star Whackers.”

A visit to the French hideaway of Ira Einhorn, co-founder of Earth Day, who had avoided arrest on murder charges for nearly 20 years. Einhorn was extradited to the United States in 2001 and is now serving a life sentence.

On the shared life of Tatiana and Krista Hogan, four years old and joined at the head.

A comprehensive history of the case against the Menendez brothers.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Austin Wiggins forced his three teenage daughters to play their strange music at New Hampshire ballrooms, firm in the belief that they would become stars. They did not.

On the perspective-bending art of identical twins Trevor and Ryan Oakes.

How three brothers from Chicago found tremendous success in their respective fields—Rahm in politics, Ari in Hollywood and Zeke in medicine—by their mid-30s.

As Texas governor and attorney general, respectively, George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales should have given each capital case careful consideration. The evidence suggests they did not.

Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted and sentenced to die for killing his two children, a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

What it’s like to serve on a jury in a capital case.

On an convict too young to vote but old enough to be strapped to a chair.

John Paul Stevens, the former Supreme Court Justice, reviews David Garland’s Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition and explains why he did a 180 on the death penalty

On the hanging of James Murphy, murderer.

The first in-depth piece on Michele Bachmann.

A profile of Romney from his last presidential campaign, with a focus on how he evolved from professional consultant to professional candidate.

On the calculated political career of Rick Perry, and what it means for his presidential bid.

Notes from the Nevada stretch of the Ron Paul campaign trail last time around.

A look at Jon Hunstman, the former Utah governor and ambassador to China now running well behind in the polls, as he prepared to announce his candidacy.

An exhaustive profile of Gingrich, then a 41-year-old congressman balancing a new role on the national stage with the spotlight on his personal life that came with it.

A profile of Rick Santorum published as he began a reelection campaign for the U.S. Senate, a race widely considered a stepping stone to a run for the White House. Santorum went on to lose.

A primer on long-shot candidate Herman Cain, former pizza chain CEO and current Tea Party star.

On the rapid rise of the New Jersey governor, who doubles as pundits’ favorite noncandidate.

An obsessive marine biologist gambles his savings, family, and sanity on a quest to be the first to capture a live giant squid.

On the grief that comes with losing livestock.

A profile of a 25-year-old Spanish sensation.

The inevitably tragic story of Travis the chimp and the family of tow-truck operators who raised him like a human child.

A trip to a lobster festival in Maine leads to an examination of the culinary and ethical dimensions of cooking a live, possibly sentient, creature.