Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Shane Bauer • Private prisons are shrouded in secrecy. I took a job as a guard to get inside—then things got crazy

On another night of searching, a centuries-old academic journal yielded a reference to a Gaspery J. Roberts. The journal had been devoted to prison reform. The hit sent Olive down a rabbit hole, at the end of which she found prison records from Earth: Gaspery J. Roberts had been sentenced to fifty years for a double homicide in Ohio in the late twe
... See moreEmily St. John Mandel • Sea of Tranquility: A novel
George Brown had been working closely with Johnson for three years; Johnson’s initial nomination to Congress, in 1937, had, in fact, been brought about to ensure an immensely complicated transaction with a very simple central point: the firm in which George and his brother Herman were the principals—Brown & Root, Inc.—was building a dam near Au
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
At first, the veil under which Russell’s feelings had been cloaked fell away only in private. There had always been scattered hints in private; years before, while he was professing on the Senate floor that “I have no greater rights because I am a white man,” he had written in a letter marked “confidential”: “Any southern white man worth a pinch of
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
temporary ROD, for conduct unbecoming an officer, or CUBO,
Michael Connelly • The Black Echo: A Novel (A Harry Bosch Novel Book 1)
dyed-in-the-wool
Robert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Little wonder that Strasser’s nickname was Rolling Thunder. Hayes, meanwhile, was Doomsday. Woodell was Weight. (As in Dead Weight.) Johnson was Four Factor, because he tended to exaggerate and therefore everything he said needed to be divided by four. No one took it personally. The only thing truly not tolerated at a Buttface was a thin
Phil Knight • Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Jim Farley, still bleeding from his dissection by Moses in the mayoral campaign, wandered into the gubernatorial contest with a quiet little statement of support for Lehman and promptly found himself back on Moses’ operating table.