An arresting excerpt from Howard Cunnell’s memoir Fathers & Sons, exploring what it is to grow up, to have a family, to be a parent, and through this to examine what he terms (in a phrase borrowed from a poem by another writer) “the shaping axe” of love. A fine piece of writing.
Quincy Jones is fantastically indiscreet in this interview, covering everything from his relationship with the Trumps, to Michael Jackson’s alleged theft of songs and The Beatles’ lack of musical talent.
A look at the life and work of Mauli Dhan and his fellow hunters, who climb rope ladders hundreds of feet up Himalayan cliffs to harvest “mad honey”, a naturally hallucinogenic honey that sells for high prices on the black market.
An often surreal peek inside the highly successful world of Goop. Gwyneth Paltrow started the business in her kitchen as an aspirational newsletter focusing on fashion and food, but it has now become a ‘wellness’ behemoth, offering a dizzying array of products and services. http://bit.ly/nyt-goop
A former US Marine returns to cities in Iraq where he fought and lost friends, and assesses the situation on the ground today.
The story of neuroscientist Barbara Lipska, who has spent much of her career studying mental illness, before suffering her own illness when receiving experimental treatment for brain cancer. This left her uniquely placed to see the “thin line between life and death, between sanity and insanity.”
A story investigating what happens when over a million people get a mobile phone notification suggesting they have minutes left to live.
A warm and fittingly entertaining look at the world of cruise ship entertainers.
A 2003 profile of Gaston Glock, the inventor of one of the most widely used handguns in the world, and something of an unusual character.
In this thoughtful piece, the author recalls his childhood interactions with the Red Army soldiers posted to a base near his home in Dresden in the 1970s.