This is a collection of magazine pieces drawn from the nominees for the National Magazine Awards. In the world of magazines, no recognition is more highly coveted than an Ellie, the National Magazine Award presented by the American Society of Magazine Editors to the best of the American magazines. The Awards are the magazine equivalents to the Pulitzer Prizes of the newspaper industry. Each year, hundreds of editors-in-chief, journalism professors, and art directors winnow more than a thousand submissions to about seventy-five nominees in categories such as reporting, feature writing,...