Why’s This So Good? “Why’s This So Good?” No. 98: Craig Childs and Muddy Waters Several writers have explored the ecological transformation of the Colorado River, dammed decades ago to supply water for 33 million people in the West and northern Mexico, but Craig Childs… November 23, 2015 April Reese “Why’s This So Good?” No. 97: Harry Crews and ‘Going Down in Valdez’ The scene could fit nicely into a Harry Crews novel: A legless man with a “beatific look of ecstasy on his thin, pale face” sits on a dolly outside the… November 6, 2015 Ted Geltner “Why’s This So Good?” No. 96: Patrick Radden Keefe and ‘Where The Bodies Are Buried’ Jean McConville had just taken a bath when the intruders knocked on the door.The rasp of knuckles at a West Belfast flat would jar many people at night in 1972.… August 28, 2015 Suzanne Sataline “Why’s this so good?” No. 95: Patrick Radden Keefe and the loaded gun It had been three months since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and stories probing the life and possible influences of the shooter Adam Lanza were still all over… July 7, 2014 Ashley P. Taylor “Why’s this so good?” No. 94: Joe Rhodes and Aunt Marge and the deep (deep) freeze Joe Rhodes pulls off the nearly impossible in “How My Aunt Marge Ended Up in the Deep Freeze,” an edgy New York Times magazine piece. He takes a horrific event—the… June 30, 2014 Neely Tucker “Why’s this so good?” No. 93: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the case for reparations It’s hard to know where to begin when attempting to grapple with the sprawling legacy of racial discrimination and oppression in America. But Ta-Nehisi Coates knows there to start. “The Case For… June 3, 2014 Eva Holland “Why’s this so good?” No. 92: David Foster Wallace and the view from the Midwest David Foster Wallace grew up in the Midwest but it was not really his home. Yet in September 2001, he was teaching at Illinois State University and living in Bloomington.… May 20, 2014 Marcus Banks Annotation Tuesday! Tom Wolfe and radical chic Tom Wolfe and I met twice, in his Upper East Side home, and to answer the inevitable question, no: He never wore a white suit. Dark blazer, dark pants, no hat.… May 13, 2014 Elon Green Ariel Levy’s personal and impossibly painful New Yorker essay “Thanksgiving in Mongolia” Levy’s narrative voice is by turn darkly comic, confessional and challenging. May 6, 2014 Alysia Abbott “Why’s this so good?” No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch Twenty-nine years ago today, Sports Illustrated ran George Plimpton’s "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch," about a mysterious, unknown major league pitching recruit who threw a fastball at jet speed. Published… April 1, 2014 Paige Williams Previous 1 … 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 … 20 Next
