Michael Finkel

Real stars, the ones in space, are simple beasts.

It’s called the Cerrado, Portuguese for “closed,” and for nearly all of human history this vast tropical savanna in central Brazil seems to have been shut off from the rest of the world… Source

In a world of easy online connection, the fact of a human body becomes a high-risk encounter, something chaotic and best avoided.

In “The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit,” Finkel chronicles Knight’s story, one he calls “bizarre and weird and brilliant and disturbing.”

Our star, the sun, will die a quiet death.

A finger across the throat and a glance seaward.

The Khan dreams of a car.

These are my final words: “Why a camp chair?”

It’s past ten o’clock in the evening, a rude hour to knock on someone’s front door, but George Wright’s attorney has assured me that this is the best time… Source

A crewman on a commercial tuna-fishing boat was the first to spot it: something shiny and metallic in the water off the ship’s bow.