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One of my favorite profiles is "The American Man Age 10" by Susan Orlean. She's the New Yorker writer, whose book The Orchid Theif inspired the movie Adaptation. In it she was played by Meryl Streep.

Here is an excerpt from "The American Man Age 10". It's only a few minutes but worth a listen. [READ: very entertaining] And I love how specific the details are. I've read that she spends weeks, sometimes months with her subjects, and I think that's reflected in this selection. If you read the whole piece, she does and amazing job crafting a compelling story around a very ordinary 10 year old. The piece really focuses on how he is on the cusp of becoming an adolescent but is still very much a child. My favorite observation is:

The collision in his mind of what he understands, what he hears, what he figures out, what popular culture pours into him, what he knows, what he pretends to know and what he imagines makes an interesting mess. The mess often has the form of what he will probably think like when he is a grown man but the content of what he is like as a little boy.

Hope you enjoy!