Nearly every famous director, actor, and producer wanted a piece of Peter Matthiessen's celebrated novel—John Huston, Paul Newman, Milos Forman, David Bowie, Richard Gere. Twenty-five years later, it's about to hit the screen. Along the way, a studio collapsed, a rain forest disappeared, and a man was hung upside down by his testicles

DINNED TO THE WALL, just above a faded cigarette ad captioned WHEN YOU'VE BEEN THERE AND BACK, is a Zip-loc bag with a letter attached. "Dear Peter," it begins. "You must certainly be wondering why you have received this packet of ashes from the Himalayas.

PARAMOUNT IS BURNING AND BRIAN DE PALMA IS CALLING FOR BLOOD. "THE NEW YORK STREET SET’S ON FIRE,” SOMEONE SAYS. “STAR TREK’S IN FLAMES.” DE PALMA NODS, UNCONCERNED. HE’S AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS DIRECTING SCARFACE, AND THERE ARE IMMEDIATE WORRIES HERE: AN ACTOR HANGING FROM a rope looks, somehow, wrong.

An elegy for mumbo jumbo

It's a beautiful world.

Terry McMillan presents a vivid history of one woman's loves that is totally unvarnished, in a voice of comic lyricism seemingly discovered in the writing

“This man would love her. She could feel it. She took a deep breath in, and clicked the button.” A new work of fiction from our most eloquent and faithful chronicler of human desire.

Why did a district attorney lift weights in his underwear? How did the Star of India sapphire get into a toilet tank? When did the go-between eat the tip-off note? Never mind what you’ve read before, this is what happened

It took a reclusive bird watcher to tell us we were killing ourselves

Sometime soon a movie called Welcome to L.A. will open in a theater near you, a movie written and directed by Alan Rudolph, produced by Robert Altman, and starring Keith (I'm Easy) Carradine, Sally ("Hot Lips") Kellerman, Harvey (Mean Streets) Keitel, and featuring Lauren (the most famous features in the world) Hutton.

There is not one chance in a thousand that the events of this story could actually have happened. But they did, and the result is that a young woman who was terminal now has a fighting chance to live, and that her case will validate an entirely new way to treat cancer. Meet Stephanie Lee.

In a nice little house on a cul-de-sac in Carrollton, Georgia, a week after a doctor was murdered last fall, a former dope dealer, a convicted killer, and a mixed-up kid came together over their grief for the babies. They discussed taking their struggle to the next level. The kid bought some guns.

Maybe powerful people like Bob Dole, Bill Bradley, and “that fat pantload in the White House” respect him because he’s an important opinion molder and kingmaker. Or maybe they just fear America’s radio savant because he’s a court jester with a bad attitude.

Personalized medicine—or, as President Obama calls it, “precision medicine”—may indeed one day deliver routine medical miracles. But for Stephanie Lee, the only miracles were the human and ancient kind.

Standing up to capital punishment, Scharlette Holdman protects the lives of Florida’s condemned