• The Rubber Room (Source: The New Yorker) – Education
• Shock Waves (Source: The American Scholar) – Iraq War
• The Goldstone Illusion (Source: The New Republic) – Israel Gaza conflict
• The Default Power (Source: Foreign Affairs) – Foreign Affairs
• The Decline of the English Department (Source: The American Scholar) – Education
• Keeping America’s Edge (Source: National Affairs) – Economics
• Is Food the New Sex? (Source: Hoover) – Behavioral Psychology
• Offensive Play (Source: The New Yorker) – Sports

David Brooks also mentions the following sources to get a daily dose of good and meaningful articles:

• Arts and Letters Daily
• The Browser
• Book Forum

Hope you enjoy the articles as much as I did.

This holiday seems to be zipping by and I haven’t really taken up anything very productive yet. Reading a few magazines here and there, catching up on a little bit of photography, searching for a birthday gift for my wife, looking for jobs, and well…not much. Then I came across an article in the NYtimes.com site – The Sidney Awards – by columnist David Brooks. In here he has given out awards to magazine articles (essays) that he feels have narrative drive and social impact. I decided to make it a project of mine to read all the articles he talks about. The reason is very simple – get acquainted with a few well written articles and built up on my repertoire of good editorials to access. Here are the articles that he has mentioned so far:

• The Cost Conundrum (Source: The New Yorker) – Healthcare
• How American Health Care Killed My Father (Source: The Atlantic) – Healthcare
• Fasten Your Seat Belts — It’s Going to Be a Bumpy Flight (Source: National Journal) – Healthcare
• Trial by Fire (Source: The New Yorker) – Judicial system and death penalty
• A Rake’s Progress (Source: The Weekly Standard) – Biographic portrayal
• Rediscovering Central Asia (Source: The Wilson Quarterly) – History and Geography

He will release a few more articles in the coming week. Let’s see what he has in store for me when he comes up with more award winners.