Among literary journalists George Plimpton is so unusual that he marches not just to a different drummer but more nearly to a different orchestra. His reputation rests on a unique assortment of accomplishments that began in his twenties when he became...

George Plimpton is one of America's most respected literary journalists, but he is perhaps best known for his sports books and essays. No other writer has taken more to heart sportswriter Paul Gallico's advice in "The Feel": "I do not insist that a...

It has been almost two months since Norman Mailer died. "Before that he lived a big, loud life, which he spent asking questions, accumulating bruises and setting all kinds of people’s hair on fire," according to the Observer's Leon Neyfakh. Boxes full of papers of...

Rassim al-JumailiBAGHDAD (AP) — Rassim al-Jumaili, a veteran Iraqi comedian who left his homeland for Syria after the U.S. invasion and played a sarcastic dictator in his final role earlier this year, died Saturday, a colleague said. He was 69.Al-Jumaili died in neighboring Syria, where...

We consume. We rarely think of how food or energy is created or how it gets to where we purchase it. We may see a truck, but we rarely think about large ships or the trains that deliver America’s new old favorite energy “alternative”—coal. I...

We consume. We rarely think of how food or energy is created or how it gets to where we purchase it. We may see a truck, but we rarely think about large ships or the trains that deliver America’s new old favorite energy “alternative”—coal. I...