Great stories thread
 

Not sure if there's much interest in this, but I love reading long-form journalism. Figured I'd start a thread and see if people would be interested in a place where we could swap our favorites. To start out, I'll highlight two I really enjoyed. One is a Grantland oral history on all-sports-talk radio station WFAN--you'll love it even if you've never heard the station before. The other is a piece on auditioning for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Don Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, and the fall and rise of the first all-sports talk station, WFAN - Grantland

The Audition

Love this stuff. I'll have to dig around for some of my own favorites.

Trial By Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?

Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty : The New Yorker

David Grann is great. He also wrote another one of of my favorites:
Rodrigo Rosenberg’s Murder in Guatemala : The New Yorker

The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist

The Great Cyberheist - NYTimes.com

+1

I pretty much check longforms.org and longreads.com every day, I just wish I had the time to read everything that looked interesting.

Seen the diamond heist one before...it's a frigging great read.

love reading those as well, what i also do is to convert them and read them on my kindle, have a pretty extensive collection on it by now.

another neat website that collects stories from a couple outlets is Byliner (often only a link to the source, still invaluable for me) : Byliner Spotlights (the spotlights are just awesome, showcasing articles on various topics all over the map)


couple articles i found great on topics that interest me :

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor....html?page=all

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor....html?page=all

both stories on Orca whales in captivity and the tragedies that ensued from that fact.

(in general there´s a lot of great stuff on there)

Crocodile Nowitzki - Page 1 - News - Dallas - Dallas Observer

great story on Nowitzki going off the map in Australia after the loss to the Warriors a while back

Roger Federer as Religious Experience - Tennis - New York Times

article on Federer from 2006 by the great Dabid Foster Wallace

2010 World Cup: David Vanole and the esophagus that saved U.S. soccer - ESPN Soccernet

awesome piece on a backup goalie from the 1990 USA soccer team.

ESPN - Not Found

story on a HS football team from Alaska

Two more recent ones I've enjoyed:

Vanity Fair on Microsoft. The HR system is a great example of MBAs run amok:

How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer and Corporate America’s Most Spectacular Decline | Business | Vanity Fair

New Yorker profile of Springsteen:

Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two : The New Yorker

Here's one I thought this was a pretty good read, not exactly a feal good story though.

BEST OF THE SOUTH ESSAY: Church Is Wherever You Are :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

I think John Jeremiah Sullivan may be my favor writer right now.

Where Is Cuba Going? - NYTimes.com

I thought this was pretty good. I spent a pretty good number of hours listening to Nancy during her heyday and had lost track of her. A rather sad story here, but pretty well told. I particularly liked the restraint the writer shows in avoiding an outright statement (or even sly reference) to what becomes obvious by the end vis a vis her love life (which is kinda relevant to the broader story)

Catching up with sports-talk radio host Nanci Donnellan, the Fabulous Sports Babe - Grantland

I haven't heard that name is so long I had completely forgotten she existed.

The Shame of College Sports - Taylor Branch - The Atlantic

I kicked off my Contemporary Issues in College Sports course with this article, which I thought did an excellent job of introducing students to the historical background and major current issues.

Pretty cool, I had no idea other than what I'd heard on the radio. I didn't even recall she was on ESPN back in the day...although "The Fabulous Sports Babe" does seem to strike a nerve of some sort from pre-2010 (when I first heard her on the radio).

I almost didn’t make it through the first few paragraphs of this one, the language seemed a little over the top. I’m glad I kept going, this is one damn good essay.

Personal History: THE FOURTH STATE OF MATTER : The New Yorker

Very powerful.

Upon This Rock
Rock music used to be a safe haven for degenerates and rebels. Until it found Jesus

The Hard Life of an N.F.L. Long Shot - NYTimes.com

did this get posted before??

Wow. Really fantastic.

Enjoyed both of these.

Great article. I enjoyed it.

I can't believe the cyber heist one didn't get more publicity at the time. I probably went through 3-4 cards from us bank and b of a in that time period.

I can attest to the product killing that went on there. Sinofsky was one of the main culprits. It's interesting that their only success the last decade was a product that was developed with near autonomy. The article fails to cover the success of the Xbox which takes away from the validity a little. The rest was spot on.

Frank Sinatra has a cold
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - Gay Talese - Best Profile of Sinatra - Esquire

Looks like there's some good stuff for when I get a chance to read more long-form...

Meanwhile, I just wrapped up with this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/ma...pagewanted=all

(About a Japanese biologist and his unique research with a regenerative species of jellyfish.)

Thanks to all that posted in this thread, some great reading.

Not long-form, but still worth reading.

Page Not Found - Yahoo!