Why’s This So Good?

My friend Matthew Power, wondrously excellent human and magazine journalist, died recently while on assignment in Uganda.Like so many others, in recent days I have missed Matt, older-writing-brother Matt, in…

In our “Why’s this so good?” series, contributors break down a favorite piece of journalistic storytelling. In honor of this, the season of Spring Break, three great reads in first-person…

From the “Why’s this so good?” archives, a handful of great reads about, or by, brilliant, brave, inspiring women, featuring Joan Didion, Rita Dove, Calvin Trillin, Julia Barton, Edna Buchanan,…

Katharine Boo begins her 2003 New Yorker piece “The Marriage Cure” with one of my all-time favorite opening lines:One July morning last year in Oklahoma City, in a public-housing project…

From our “Why’s this so good?” archives, a handful of great reads on music by Lil Wayne, James Brown, Britney Spears and Sly Stone, deconstructed for craft and significance by the…

From our “Why’s this so good?” archives, a handful of great reads on Hollywood by Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Ian Parker and Dave Gardetta, deconstructed for craft and significance by critic…

It's easy to miss. A sobering second, surrounded by intemperance. But there it is, the transitional scene after Hunter S. Thompson opens "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" with…

Don’t talk about the weather. Don’t ask anybody where they’re from or where they went to school. Oh, and don’t worry if they don’t want salad: Chances are they’ve eaten…

And I met her, we got along fine, but I was hanging around in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, for about a week. Really what that week entailed was…

If something funny comes my way — an article about dog whisperers, let's say — I am sometimes reduced to responding with the shorthand “LOL,” though the truth is few stories…