David Owen
David Owen has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1991. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including “Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River,” which grew out of a magazine piece published in 2015; “High School,” about the four months he spent pretending to be a high-school student; “None of the Above: The Truth Behind the SATs,” an exposé of the standardized-testing industry; “Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability”; “The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse”; and “Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World.”
Previously, Owen was a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a senior writer at Harper’s. He is also a contributing editor at Golf Digest and Popular Mechanics. In 2011, he was named, in a book edited by Andy Borowitz, one of the fifty funniest American writers.
How to Live Forever
The simplest, most foolproof way to extend life is to do so backward, by adding years in reverse.
Visiting Places That No Longer Exist
The artist Ellen Harvey takes a tour of disappeared New York City landmarks that appear in her project “The Disappointed Tourist.”
Vaclav Smil and the Value of Doubt
A ruthless dissector of unwarranted assumptions takes on environmental catastrophists and techno-optimists.
A Question of Legacy
Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
Lost in the Mountains
In the nineteen-sixties, my sleepaway camp was delightfully under-supervised. Then a camper went missing.
What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?
Online merchants changed the way we shop—and made “reverse logistics” into a booming new industry.
The Great Electrician Shortage
Going green will depend on blue-collar workers. Can we train enough of them before time runs out?
What a Sixty-Five-Year-Old Book Teaches Us About A.I.
Rereading an oddly resonant—and prescient—consideration of how computation affects learning.
The Objectively Objectionable Grammatical Pet Peeve
A semi-attentive investigation into a confounding sentence type.
The Polymath Film Composer Known as “the Third Coen Brother”
Carter Burwell’s spare, haunting scores make audiences uncomfortable.
The Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard Tinkerers
On the right machine, typing can be like playing a Steinway grand. Is tactile perfection possible?
Saudi Arabia Astroturfs the Golf Course
Mohammed bin Salman has bankrolled a new rival to the P.G.A. Tour. What’s behind it?
The Biggest Potential Water Disaster in the United States
In California, millions of residents and thousands of farmers depend on the Bay-Delta for fresh water—but they can’t agree on how to protect it.
A Freelancer’s Forty-Three Years in the American Health-Care System
Bills that aren’t bills arrive in the mail, doctors opt out of treatment, and patients need expert help to figure out which diseases they can afford to have.
How the Refrigerator Became an Agent of Climate Catastrophe
The evolution of cooling technology helps to explain why supposed solutions to global warming have only made the situation worse.
George Booth’s Old-School Character and Cartooning
In his documentary “Drawing Life,” Nathan Fitch showcases the art and outlooks that made Booth a cartooning icon.
The Kansas City School That Became a Stop for R. & B. Performers
In the nineteen-sixties, artists such as Bo Diddley and the Ike & Tina Turner Revue played the prom at Pembroke-Country Day.
The Great Bridge Boycott
At a recent tournament, thirty teams refused to compete when faced with the prospect of playing against Fulvio Fantoni, a notorious Italian player who has been accused of cheating.
Meet Merlin, the Bird-Identifying App
Heather Wolf, a part-time juggling impresario, feeds her birding habit with an app that pegs species—even on the Brooklyn Bridge—using both images and birdsong.
On Air with the Greatest Radio Station in the World
WPKN-FM—on which you can hear a Stevie Wonder song performed by an all-women jazz septet or twenty minutes of Tuvan throat singing—moves to a new location in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut.
How to Live Forever
The simplest, most foolproof way to extend life is to do so backward, by adding years in reverse.
Visiting Places That No Longer Exist
The artist Ellen Harvey takes a tour of disappeared New York City landmarks that appear in her project “The Disappointed Tourist.”
Vaclav Smil and the Value of Doubt
A ruthless dissector of unwarranted assumptions takes on environmental catastrophists and techno-optimists.
A Question of Legacy
Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
Lost in the Mountains
In the nineteen-sixties, my sleepaway camp was delightfully under-supervised. Then a camper went missing.
What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?
Online merchants changed the way we shop—and made “reverse logistics” into a booming new industry.
The Great Electrician Shortage
Going green will depend on blue-collar workers. Can we train enough of them before time runs out?
What a Sixty-Five-Year-Old Book Teaches Us About A.I.
Rereading an oddly resonant—and prescient—consideration of how computation affects learning.
The Objectively Objectionable Grammatical Pet Peeve
A semi-attentive investigation into a confounding sentence type.
The Polymath Film Composer Known as “the Third Coen Brother”
Carter Burwell’s spare, haunting scores make audiences uncomfortable.
The Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard Tinkerers
On the right machine, typing can be like playing a Steinway grand. Is tactile perfection possible?
Saudi Arabia Astroturfs the Golf Course
Mohammed bin Salman has bankrolled a new rival to the P.G.A. Tour. What’s behind it?
The Biggest Potential Water Disaster in the United States
In California, millions of residents and thousands of farmers depend on the Bay-Delta for fresh water—but they can’t agree on how to protect it.
A Freelancer’s Forty-Three Years in the American Health-Care System
Bills that aren’t bills arrive in the mail, doctors opt out of treatment, and patients need expert help to figure out which diseases they can afford to have.
How the Refrigerator Became an Agent of Climate Catastrophe
The evolution of cooling technology helps to explain why supposed solutions to global warming have only made the situation worse.
George Booth’s Old-School Character and Cartooning
In his documentary “Drawing Life,” Nathan Fitch showcases the art and outlooks that made Booth a cartooning icon.
The Kansas City School That Became a Stop for R. & B. Performers
In the nineteen-sixties, artists such as Bo Diddley and the Ike & Tina Turner Revue played the prom at Pembroke-Country Day.
The Great Bridge Boycott
At a recent tournament, thirty teams refused to compete when faced with the prospect of playing against Fulvio Fantoni, a notorious Italian player who has been accused of cheating.
Meet Merlin, the Bird-Identifying App
Heather Wolf, a part-time juggling impresario, feeds her birding habit with an app that pegs species—even on the Brooklyn Bridge—using both images and birdsong.
On Air with the Greatest Radio Station in the World
WPKN-FM—on which you can hear a Stevie Wonder song performed by an all-women jazz septet or twenty minutes of Tuvan throat singing—moves to a new location in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut.