Less scholarly and more superficial entertainment, The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big Time Weapons Traders by Guy Lawson.  The title says it all - this article is awesome.

Link to more Guy Lawson articles (takes you to his website).

This morning's article is by David Foster Wallace , who has been considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.  DFW led a very interesting life which, after all the awards and success as a writer, was cut short by suicide due to intense depression.

This article is fantastic, not least because it basically thrashes the cruise ship industry which happens to be an opinion shared by myself.  Enjoy reading Shipping Out (on the nearly lethal comforts of a luxury cruise) from Harpers Magazine 1996.

More DFW articles and analysis can be found at this fan website.

In this article Taken by Pirates, Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times reports on one British couple's harrowing ordeal with Somali pirates.  After a little bit of research, I can confidently say that if you need an expert on Somalia and eastern African affairs, you should call Mr. Gettleman.

Click here for an NPR interview with the author.

Nice short article today - The Greatest Running Shoe Never Sold.  This one by Bob Parks from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

'How hard is it for an independent inventor to sell an idea to a multinational? Try running a mile in Lenn Hann's shoes'

Can't help myself - another Chris Jones article. This one is considered his best writing to date (winner of the 2009 National Magazine Award for feature writing). and is from the May 2008 issue of Esquire.  In The Things That Carried Him, Chris tells the story of a KIA American soldier in Iraq and his journey home.  Pay attention to the way he chose to write this article - its written backwards - I know, you'll see when you read it.

Here is an extremely long interview with Chris about his writing process, and he goes into a lot of background of how the story came together.

Read the CNN article that piqued Chris' interest here.  Also, here's another interview with Esquire magazine about Chris and more on the article background here.  

Today we have great article by Chris Jones of Esquire magazine.  This article, TVs Crowning Moment of Awesome, is from 2010 and is the story of Terry Kniess, the first man in 30 years to have a perfect bid on the showcase round at the end of The Price is Right.  Terry's life is interesting to say the least.  First a weatherman, then a casino surveillance expert (think Eye in the Sky) then to a card counting blackjack player.

Read the story here. 

Watch the video from the show here.

And see commentary here, and a link to his book on Amazon here.

See Terry's facebook profile here.

Welcome to Pastpresentfeature.  The purpose of this site is to compile good writing from various print and digital sources into one place for organization and discussion purposes. 

Let’s be clear on what I mean by ‘good writing’.  I am not a writer, nor am I a qualified critic of literature.  I am, however, an avid reader and voracious consumer of magazine writing.  And this qualifies me to post whatever I want in my blog that I think others should be reading.  A lot of the articles that will be posted here have won awards, or been considered for awards by actual qualified critics.   Others will simply be articles that I have enjoyed about subjects that I am interested in.