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Best New Yorker Articles of 2012

Explore 47 featured picks from The New Yorker's 2012 issues.

47 picks · 47 issues · Top author: Peter Hessler (2)

Most featured section: A Reporter at Large

Featured Picks

Drug Test
Ariel Levy · Letter from Bangalore · January 2

Can one self-made woman reform health care for India, and the world?

All Due Respect
Peter Hessler · Profiles · January 9

An American reporter takes on the yakuza.

Writing the Revolution
Wendell Steavenson · Letter from Cairo · January 16

Egypt’s leading novelist surveys the Arab uprising.

Looking for Mullah Omar
Steve Coll · Profiles · January 23

Will the United States be able to negotiate with a man it has hunted for a decade?

Groupthink
Jonah Lehrer · Annals of Ideas · January 30

The brainstorming myth.

The Story of a Suicide
Ian Parker · A Reporter at Large · February 6

Ian Parker on Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers student who committed suicide after discovering that his roommate, Dharun Ravi, was taping his sexual encounters.

Transfiguration
Raffi Khatchadourian · A Reporter at Large · February 13

How Dallas Wiens found a new face.

The Master And Mikhail
Julia Ioffe · A Reporter at Large · February 27

Are Putin and Prokhorov running for President against or with each other?

Disarming Viktor Bout
Nicholas Schmidle · A Reporter at Large · March 5

The rise and fall of the world’s most notorious weapons trafficker.

The Hours
Daniel Zalewski · Profiles · March 12

How Christian Marclay created the ultimate digital mosaic.

Children of the Dirty War
Francisco Goldman · A Reporter at Large · March 19

A group of grandmothers track down the stolen children of dissidents who were disappeared during Argentina’s Dirty War. Francisco Goldman tells their story.

Expletives Not Deleted
Ian Parker · Profiles · March 26

Ian Parker profiles Armando Iannucci, the British screenwriter known for profane political comedies, including “Veep” and “The Thick of It.”

Mayor Presumptive
Rebecca Mead · Profiles · April 2

Christine Quinn and the last days of Bloomberg.

The God of Gamblers
Evan Osnos · Letter from China · April 9

Why Las Vegas is moving to Macau.

Transatlantic
Colum McCann · Fiction · April 16

She’s wide and lumbering, but Jack Alcock still thinks her a nippy little thing...

Drawn from Life
Judith Thurman · Profiles · April 23

The world of Alison Bechdel.

The Secret of the Temple
Jake Halpern · A Reporter at Large · April 30

The discovery of treasure worth billions of dollars shakes southern India.

Nero
Louise Erdrich · Fiction · May 7

Nero, a mixture of fierce breeds in a line known locally as guard dogs, was valued for his strength, his formidable jaws, and his resonant bark...

Sweet Dreams
Peter Stamm · Fiction · May 14

Lara worked at the Raiffeisen Bank, and she got off work before Simon, but she liked to wait for him so that they could travel home together...

Money Unlimited
Jeffrey Toobin · Annals of Law · May 21

Jeffrey Toobin on how Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, dramatically changing campaign-finance laws.

The Yankee Comandante
David Grann · A Reporter at Large · May 28

A story of love, revolution, and betrayal.

The Republic of Empathy
Sam Lipsyte · Fiction · June 4

My wife wanted another baby. But I thought Philip was enough. A toddler is a lot...

Arab Summer
Peter Hessler · A Reporter at Large · June 18

Will the elections end the Egyptian revolution?

Means of Suppressing Demonstrations
Shani Boianjiu · Fiction · June 25

Shani Boianjiu’s short story about Israeli soldiers who encounter a trio of Palestinian protesters at a checkpoint.

Another Life
Paul La Farge · Fiction · July 2

The sleazebag shakes the wife’s hand, and it looks as if her hand kind of lingers in his. Then the sleaze­bag leaves...

An Abduction
Tessa Hadley · Fiction · July 9

Fiction by Tessa Hadley: a teen-ager in the ninteen-sixties impulsively goes joyriding with a group of boys.

A History of Violence
Jon Lee Anderson · A Reporter at Large · July 23

A year ago, Sudan broke into two countries. Will that end its long civil war?

We Are Alive
David Remnick · Profiles · July 30

Bruce Springsteen at sixty-two.

Marathon Man
Mark Singer · A Reporter at Large · August 6

A Michigan dentist’s improbable transformation.

Sporting Chance
Steve Coll · Profiles · August 13

Can a sex symbol and cricket legend run Pakistan?

The War Within
Jon Lee Anderson · Letter from Syria · August 27

As Syria descends into civil war, can its rebel factions unite against the government?

Birnam Wood
T. Coraghessan Boyle · Fiction · September 3

A substitute teacher and his girlfriend reside as caretakers in a large, lakeside house for the winter, in this short story from 2012.

Check, Please
John Colapinto · Annals of Gastronomy · September 10

The challenge of creating a world-class restaurant—and turning a profit.

The Professor
Jeffrey Toobin · Profiles · September 17

Jeffrey Toobin on the close Senate race in Massachusetts between the progressive Democrat and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren and the incumbent Republican senator, Scott Brown.

The Crisis Manager
Gay Talese · Profiles · September 24

Trying times for Joe Girardi and the Yankees.

Transaction Man
Nicholas Lemann · A Reporter at Large · October 1

Mormonism, private equity, and the making of a candidate.

Cashier Du Cinema
Connie Bruck · Profiles · October 8

After supermarkets, private equity, and politics, Ron Burkle makes a move on Hollywood.

The Semplica-Girl Diaries
George Saunders · Fiction · October 15

Fiction, from 2012: “Note to future generations: Happiness possible. And happy so much better than opposite, i.e., sad.”

Germs Are Us
Michael Specter · Annals of Science · October 22

Bacteria make us sick. Do they also keep us alive?

Atonement
Dexter Filkins · A Reporter at Large · October 29

Along with his fellow-marines, Lu Lobello killed innocent bystanders in a chaotic Baghdad firefight. Then he sought out the family he harmed. Dexter Filkins reports.

Member / Guest
David Gilbert · Fiction · November 12

Fiction by David Gilbert: a self-conscious teen-ager faces snobbish parents and vicious frenemies at an exclusive beach club on Long Island.

The Party Next Time
Ryan Lizza · A Reporter at Large · November 19

As immigration turns red states blue, how can Republicans transform their platform?

Bull
Mo Yan · Fiction · November 26

I’d never seen a white-faced bull before. It was castrated, and the way it looked at you out of the corner of its eyes was enough to make your hair stand…

The Philosopher Chef
Jane Kramer · Profiles · December 3

Yotam Ottolenghi’s ideas are changing the way London eats.

A Voice in the Night
Steven Millhauser · Fiction · December 10

Now all he can do is lie there thinking about things, high school, grade school, the boy in the room in Stratford, listening for the voice in the night. …

Operation Delirium
Raffi Khatchadourian · A Reporter at Large · December 17

Decades after a risky Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets.

Polar Express
Keith Gessen · A Reporter at Large · December 24

Keith Gessen travels on the Nordic Odyssey, a cargo ship that, thanks to rising temperatures, can sail the Northeast Passage, from Russia to China.

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