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Never Be Without Slate Again

Download Slate articles as e-books from Amazon.

For more than a decade, Slate’s plan to achieve total world domination has been stymied by “The Dentist’s Office Problem.” You’re stuck at the dentist’s office—or on a plane, or in a tunnel—and there’s no Wi-Fi and nothing to read but a six-week-old gossip magazine. How are you supposed to get your Slate fix? We’re pleased to announce that we finally have a solution for you. Slate is starting to publish some of our longform journalism and special projects as e-books available for your Kindle, iPad, or smartphone.

We’re starting small. There are currently four Slate e-books available at Amazon: Jessica Grose’s Home Economics: How Couples Manage Their Money, Chris Wilson’s The Rosslyn Code: A 500-Year-Old Message in Stone, Michael Agger’s  Moneygolf: Unlocking the Secrets of Golf, and June Thomas’ The Gay Bar: Its Riotous Past and Uncertain Future. Look for more titles coming soon, and remember that you can also get Slate delivered to your Kindle every day. 

The Gay Bar: Its Riotous Past and Uncertain Future
When the New York State Senate voted 33-29 to approve same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian New Yorkers—and some straight supporters—knew the perfect place to celebrate: They headed to the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar where, 42 years earlier, the modern gay rights movement had been born. The jubilation at Stonewall and on the surrounding streets was a stirring celebration of progress. But author June Thomas, an editor at Slate Magazine, can’t help but wonder whether, as gay rights move forward, the gay bar—the place where it all began—may get left behind. Thomas takes an in-depth look at the past, present, and future of the gay bar, an institution that she describes as “my cultural patrimony and my political heritage.” She writes: “I’d feel their passing far more fiercely than the loss of the neighborhood video store. Without the gay bar, gay culture and gay rights might not exist.”

Moneygolf: Unlocking the Secrets of Golf
For the past eight years, the PGA Tour has been recording the starting point and ending point of every shot in every regular tournament. That’s 8 million shots and counting: shots that have landed in trees, shots that have landed in laps, four-putt greens, double eagles, hole-in-ones. Each week during the PGA season, the data in the ShotLink system grows richer and more robust. For sports researchers, the numbers have taken on a looming, spectacular quality, like a mountain waiting to be climbed. These 8 million shots represent the best efforts of a group of elite athletes hitting a golf ball. What can they teach us about the dynamics of competition? About choking? Slate senior editor Michael Agger sets out to answer these questions in his six-part series, exploring how a new emphasis on statistics can help us understand how the modern game is played and what it takes to be the best in the world.

The Rosslyn Code: A 500-Year-Old Message in Stone A genuine mystery hides inside the Scottish church made famous by The Da Vinci Code. At the back of the Rosslyn Chapel, where Dan Brown set the climactic scene of his novel, are 213 stone cubes carved with curious geometric symbols. For centuries, scholars regarded them as mere decorations. But in the 1970s, a man named Tommy Mitchell became convinced that they meant something more. Just a few years ago, Mitchell and his son Stuart finally chanced on an essential clue: The patterns in the chapel closely resemble an extraordinary natural phenomenon known as Chladni patterns. This led them to an astonishing conclusion about the 500-year-old secret encoded in the walls of the chapel. Chris Wilson investigates—and perhaps solves—a bizarre ancient mystery.

Home Economics: How Couples Manage Their Money Do you and your spouse have separate bank accounts? Do you share everything? Does one of you make vastly more than the other? Today’s newly married couples face an entirely new financial landscape, with wives outearning their husbands and families making financial decisions their parents never could have imagined. In this fascinating book, newlywed Jessica Grose identifies three methods that couples use to handle their money: Common Potters, Independent Operators, and Sometimes Sharers. Grose sets out to find the system that works best for her and her husband and offers advice for young couples (and not-so-young) about how to manage their finances fairly and without stress.