Tag Archives: Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading is back from a two week hiatus! Huzzah! Let’s get right to it.

The Surprising History of the Milk Carton from The Atlantic. “A humble paper product tells a story of farming, waste, and home technology in 19th- and 20th-century America.” Best article I read all week.

My Summer at an Indian Call Center from Mother Jones.

Women And Children First? Shipwreck Study Shows Men More Likely To Survive Maritime Disasters from  The Huffington Post.

Fifteen-Year-Old Boy Pleads Guilty To Chinese Art Heist At Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum from the Huffington Post.

I’m Truly Sorry For This, But You’re About To Hear All About The Last Marathon I Ran from the Onion. Made me laugh.

For More Pianos, Last Note Is Thud in the Dump from The New York Times.

Commuters Pedal to Work on Their Very Own Superhighway from The New York Times. Pack your stuff. We’re all moving to Denmark.

10 Things You Should Never Say to a Deaf Person from Becoming Deaf. I found this through my friend Jane and I think it’s really interesting.

The Case for More Urban Trees from The Atlantic Cities. “The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.” Yowza.

Tony Robbins’ Inspirational Firewalk Ends in Serious Burns from Gawker. That’s a hell of a headline.

Speed dating on the farm: ‘Weed dating’ allows singles to meet while getting their hands dirty from the StarTribune. Juniper Moon Farm Dating Service?

Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer: Gore Vidal’s Obit from The New York Times.

36 Hours in Kiev, Ukraine from The New York Times Travel section.

Finding Work From Fly-Fishing’s Popularity from The New York Times Travel section.

The Not-So-Perfect Kilogram and Why the Metric System Might Be Screwed from Mental Floss.

Cocoa Grader: Hard Job, Sweet Perks from The Wall Street Journal.

The Secret City from The Atlantic. I had never heard of this. (via my friend Bill.)

William Winans, 1-Year-Old Illinois Boy, Bitten In Crib By Escaped Ball Python from The Huffington Post. This story skeeves me the hell out!

Why the Amish Population Is Exploding from The Atlantic. Go, the Amish!

J.K. Rowling Planning Hogwarts-Like Treehouses For Her Kids from The Huffington Post.

Being Anxious Makes You More Likely to Die Young from Gawker. So there’s that.

What have you been reading this week? Time to share with the rest of us.

In Dieting, Magic Isn’t a Substitute for Science from The New York Times.

Pacu, Testicle-Eating Fish Species, Caught In Lake Lou Yaeger In Illinois from The Huffington Post.

Kim Jong Il, the Director He Kidnapped, and the Awful Godzilla Film They Made Together from Mental Floss.

Knitting ‘can delay’ memory loss from the BBC. This is from 2009 but still interesting.

The Worst Marriage in Georgetown from The New York Times.

Quite Likely the Worst Job Ever from Smithsonian Magazine.

A Summer at Camp Kweebec from Philadelphia Magazine.

A Snitch’s Dilemma from The New York Times. I was kind of shocked by this.

The Passion of John Wojnowski from The Washingtonian. “Haunted by his past, he has stood outside the Vatican embassy nearly every day for 14 years. His lonely vigil has made him a hero to victims of sexual abuse. But will he ever find peace?”

Weir Fishing for the Last Sardine Cannery in North America from The Art of Eating.

Justice in Time from Texas Monthly. “Fifteen years after being released from death row, Kerry Max Cook is still looking for freedom.”

Keeper of the Flame from The New England Review. Very compelling. “On thanksgiving my father asked me if i wanted to visit the Nazi.”

The Little-Known History of How the Modern Olympics Got Their Start from Smithsonian Magazine.

Federal Agency Wades Into Mermaid Debate from Slate. ’“No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found,” the federal agency declares in a statement on its website.’ Best statement by a federal agency ever.

A Court Allows Payment for Bone Marrow. Should People Be Able to Sell Their Parts? from Time.

Should You Leave the AC On for Your Cat or Dog? from Slate.

Up Close, but Doing No Harm from The New York Times. Great travel article.

On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro from The New York Times.

Doris Sams Dead: Women’s League Baseball Star Who Helped Inspire ‘A League Of Their Own’ Dies At 85 from The Huffington Post.

Justice and ‘a Ray of Hope’ After 2002 India Riots from The New York Times.

The Picky Eater Who Came to Dinner from The New York Times. PREACH ON, SISTER! We deal with this all the time.

Why Did People Wear Powdered Wigs?  from Mental Floss.

How All 50 States Got Their Names from Mental Floss.

Relief in Every Window, but Global Worry Too from The New York Times.

Dressing With Faith, Not Heat, in Mind from The New York Times.

THE WORLD’S FIRST AND ONLY COMPLETELY HONEST RÉSUMÉ OF A GRAPHIC DESIGNER from McSweeney’s. This is really, really funny.

Dusting Off the Sewing Machine from The New York Times.

Doctor Who Has Worked Seven Days a Week Since the ’50s Still Charges Patients Five Dollars a Visit from Gawker.

When My Crazy Father Actually Lost His Mind from The New York Times Magazine.

SPOILED ROTTEN:Why do kids rule the roost? from The New Yorker.

Separated At Death from Texas Monthly. Really great article.

THE KINGPINS: The fight for Guadalajara  from The New Yorker.

Why Fast Food is Not Saving You Time (nor Doing You Other Favors) from Good.

Mooning: A History from Slate.

Sidecar lets drivers rent out their empty backseat from Grist.

Norway To Build Breivik His Own Psychiatric Ward from Slate.

People Are Awesome: Woman Saves Horse’s Life, Evokes The Neverending Story from Good.

As Swarms Startle New York, Officer on Bee Beat Stays Busy from The New York Times.

Malters Bring Terroir to the Beer Bottle from The New York Times.

Have you read anything that really made you think this week? Share it with us.

Secretariat Given Preakness Record 39 Years Later from the New York Times.

Hebrew National hot dogs not kosher, lawsuit claims from Reuters.

Green Roofs in Big Cities Bring Relief From Above from The New York Times.

Hypochondria: The Impossible Illness from Psychology Today. Fascinating.

Papa from GQ Magazine. This is about the millions of dollars and legal mess left behind when James Brown died. Really interesting.

Cocaine Incorporated from The New York Times. How a Mexican drug cartel makes it’s billions.

Bath Salts: Deep in the Heart of America’s New Drug Nightmare from Spin. Yowza, this is terrifying.

What are you reading this weekend?

The Complete History of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Mental Floss.

The Ax Murderer Who Got Away from Smithsonian Magazine.

Whitey Bulger’s Women: Inside the Terror and Glamour of His Ex-Girlfriends from The Daily Beast.

The Long, Fake Life of J.S. Dirr: A Decade-Long Internet Cancer Hoax Unravels from Gawker. Un-be-freakin’-lievable.

Navahoax from LA Weekly. This Münchausen by Internet thing is becoming a regular theme. Here’s the follow up from Esquire.

Couple Living in Home Psychic Said Was Scene of Mass Grave Sues Several from The Texas Monthly Daily Post.

The Lost Boys from Texas Monthly. This article is seriously disturbing. I honestly wish I hadn’t read it and I nearly deleted it. Read at your own risk.

Archaeologists in Bulgaria unearth 700-year-old vampire burial from A Blog About History.

Bizarre mushrooms like alien species from Amazing Data.

For Ohio Pottery, a Small Revival from The New York Times.

The Baroness and Her Lost Mercedes from The New York Times Magazine.

The Simple, Humble, Surprisingly Sexy Button from Slate.

The Life and Death of Jesse James: An internet love mystery from LA Weekly. This is from 2007 but so. flippin’. crazy.

Girls Love Me : Can Austin Mahone become a real live global superstar? from Texas Monthly.

Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala from Pro Publica. Heartbreaking and fascinating.

A New York Times Whodunit from New York Magazine.

The Strange Thing About Bruce Jenner from Esquire. Turns out there is something interesting going on in the Kardashian house.

How the Chicken Conquered the World from Smithsonian Magazine. Hands-down fav of the week!

The Devils in the Diva from Vanity Fair. It still seems crazy to me that Whitney Houston is dead.

 “Gary Jones” Wants Your Nudes from The Village Voice. I didn’t even know “revenge porn” was a thing. Ugh.

Can Mom-and-Pop Shops Survive Extreme Gentrification? from The New York Times.

Caballo Blanco’s Last Run: The Micah True Story from The New York Times. Best article I read all week.

Uncatchable from GQ. “America’s most elusive fugitive, ran for forty years. He ran from the cops after escaping from prison. He ran from the feds after the most brazen hijacking in history. He ran from the authorities on three continents, hiding out and blending in wherever he went. It was a historic run—and now that it’s over, he might just pull off the greatest escape of all” If you read nothing else this week, read this.

Indians Feed the Monkeys, Which Bite the Hand from The New York Times

Longing for the Return of Dueling Pistol from The New York Times.  I could get more interested in the Olympics if Tug of War and Dueling Pistols were brought back.

Japan Tsunami Debris: Bones Expected To Wash Ashore, Oceanographer Says from The Huffington Post

Mother of God, Child of Zeus from The Virginia Quarterly Review. “Deep in the Amazon, mercury from small gold mines threatens to poison the rivers—and their people.”

A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now? from Religious Dispatches. “A reporter tracks down the remnants of Harold Camping’s apocalyptic movement and finds out you don’t have to be crazy to believe something nuts.”

Grace in Broken Arrow from This Land. “The story of a sex abuse scandal inside a Tulsa Christian school, where church leaders were in denial and where the crimes shattered the lives of victims and their families.”

Larry Hagman’s Curtain Call from Texas Monthly.

Eugene Polley, Conjuror of a Device That Changed TV Habits, Dies at 96 from The New York Times.

Green Roofs in Big Cities Bring Relief From Above from The New York Times. Love this!

Did you read anything amazing this week?

I was in bed with a vicious cold this week, so I had loads of time to read, which means lots of great suggestions for you.

Who Killed Mary Eula Sears? from Texas Monthly.

Will cloning bring back the glory days of cashmere? from Free Press Kashmir.

Holy Crap, a Childhood Is Made Up of Only 940 Saturdays? from Jezebel.

Southern Women from Garden & Gun. This article is causing all kinds of controversy.

Who Made That Clothespin? from The New York Times.

Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath? from The New York Times. Terrifying.

D.I.Y. Biology, on the Wings of the Mockingjay from The New York Times.

Consumed by Food: Can the Obesity Epidemic Change the Way We Eat? from Flavor Magazine.

The Secret Life of a Society Maven from The New York Times. One of the best things I read all week.

Florida farm workers tell how drugs, debt bind them in modern slavery from the Tampa Bay Times.

A Fish Story: How an angler and two government bureaucrats may have saved the Atlantic Ocean. From The Washington Monthy.

A Derby Win, but a Troubled Record for a Trainer from the Times. Disturbing…

The Climate Fixers: Is there a technological solution to global warming? from The New Yorker.

The frequent fliers who flew too much from the Los Angeles Times.

Unsolved Mystery from Texas Monthly. Everyone who lived in Texas in 1991 remembers the Austin yogurt shop murder. Most people don’t realized it was never solved.

15 Powerful Things Happy People Do Differently from Purpose Fairy.