The Quidditch World Cup sounds dorky, and make no mistake: it is. But these sorcery-loving Harry Potter fans play pretty rough, as Eric Hansen found out when he captained a bad-news team of ex-athletes, ultimate Frisbee studs, slobs, drunks, and some people he knows from Iceland. Brooms up, and may the best Muggles win.

While the glory of her voice propelled Whitney Houston into the pop stratosphere, her demons kept dragging her down, a powerful undertow of drugs and toxic relationships. Following her death in a Beverly Hilton bathtub, Mark Seal investigates Houston’s final days: the prayers and the parties, the Hollywood con artist on the scene, and the message she left behind.

Justin Bieber is now 18 years old. Which means, technically, he's an adult. But the question remains: Is he a man? (If you just laughed, congratulations: You're mean.)

Along one stretch of New York asphalt—44th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues—the author excavates a vanishing civilization, peeling back decades of his own past as well. Thirty years on, the barber in the old New Yorker building is still there. The blueblood haunts are trapped in amber. The ghosts of Frank Crowninshield, William Shawn, Dorothy Parker, and Harry Houdini linger. From the Algonquin to the Harvard Club, to the ever morphing Royalton, Alex Shoumatoff savors the madeleines of the life he left behind.

He has appeared in sixty-one movies, many of them blockbusters, and has five more this year. He has raised three children, all of them grown, and had one more this year. He has a lot to say, but it's tough getting it out of him, especially when he keeps getting up to take a leak. But stick around. It's worth it.

Coupon clipping as the key to economic rebirth.

Is quiz bowl the ultimate test of smarts or an overblown game of Trivial Pursuit?

Eight years ago, Dan Rather broadcast an explosive report on the Air National Guard service of President George W. Bush. It was supposed to be the legendary newsman’s finest hour. Instead, it blew up in his face, tarnishing his career forever. Joe Hagan finally gets to the bottom of the greatest untold story in modern Texas politics, with exclusive, never-before-seen details that shed fresh light on who was right, who was wrong, and what really happened.

Dwight Macdonald shows us that only a great writer can be a great critic.

Remembering the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch.