Friday, December 24, 2010

ONE OF THE FEW RETAILERS TO MARRY CULT APPEAL WITH SCALE:  Among David Brooks' picks for the best magazine articles of the year (and do share your own links -- I'll again point you to GQ's Comedy Issue from the summer) is this fascinating Fortune article inside the secret world of Trader Joe's.

15 comments:

  1. I had forgotten about this tradition, but I love it (and not least because it prompts me to reflect on the magazine pieces I've enjoyed).  I suspect i'll be back with more (and hopefully they will be less political), but I want to mention Sean Wilentz's New Yorker piece from the fall on what I will un-ironically call Glenn Beck's intellectual heritage in the John Birch Society and ultraconservative Mormonism:

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_wilentz?currentPage=all

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  2. Pico Ayer on Istanbul, from National Geographic:  http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/city-guides/istanbul-traveler/

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  3. I was actually less than overwhelmed by the TJ's piece, because there wasn't a lot of meat there, largely because no one currently in the organization talked.  The New Yorker piece Russ mentions was quite good, but there hasn't been a really strong piece that stuck with me in the way that (for instance) the Willingham piece a few years ago did.

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  4. gretchen2:49 PM

    I was very moved by "Letting Go," by Atul Gawande, in the New Yorker this summer -- and it also made me think long and hard about end-of-life issues.  http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande

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  5. Watts2:59 PM

    I learned very little new from that TJ's piece. 

    Although I was a little !!! to discover that my tiny little town was one of only five to get a new store this year.

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  6. Joseph Finn3:18 PM

    I found the New Yorker article on Shigeru Miyamoto in the most recent issue to be a fascinating look at a man who's shaped a lot of cultural imagery and his industry. (Naturally, there's a whole raft of other subjects any serious look at video games entails.)

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  7. Might I recommend the Long Reads twitter feed?  http://twitter.com/longreads

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  8. Whatever else one thinks of him, Christopher Hitchens' "So, it seems I'm about to die from cancer" piece was extremely well done.  http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-201009

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  9. Loved the Wilentz piece also, and enjoyed Jill Lepore's piece on the Tea Party:

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/03/100503fa_fact_lepore

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  10. Heather K11:09 AM

    This piece was my most haunting of 2010. I can't bring myself to say favorite.

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  11. gretchen7:08 PM

    Good recommendation -- this one was fascinating.

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  12. Two New York Times magazine articles stick out to me right now: one on the teenagers fighting for the Dream Act, and one on women who are trying to make a difference in the world through personal acts and efforts (running marathons to help women in the Congo, etc.) and what that has meant for them personally and for their causes.

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  13. Anonymous5:47 PM

    I enjoyed this article from Outside magazine back in January about Colton Harris-Moore. 

    http://outsideonline.com/outside/culture/201001/colton-harris-moore-plane-steal-1.html

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