Longreads

Although high school debate is often considered the thinking person’s—the nerd’s—alternative to sports, my memories of it are primarily somatic: the starched collar of the…

This week's Longreads Member pick is "Contest of Words," Ben Lerner's October 2012 essay from Harper's Magazine. Lerner is author of the award-winning 2011 novel Leaving the Atocha Station and three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw and Mean Free Path.

The story comes recommended by Matt O'Rourke, a longtime Longreads community member and creative director for Wieden and Kennedy in Portland (he also runs the Twitter account @fuckyesreading).

Support Longreads—and get more stories like this—by becoming a member for just $3 per month.

A young man who called himself Blessed had agreed to meet me in front of the Speke Hotel, the oldest in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, but he was late, very late, and I had no way to contact him.…

ROBERT MACNEIL (voice over): A Galilean preacher claims he is the Redeemer and says the poor are blessed. Should he be crucified? (Titles) MACNEIL: Good evening. The Roman procurator in Jerusalem is…

401K 2012/Flickr As election season heats up, I asked my Mother Jones colleagues to suggest their picks for the best recent long-form reportage on one of our favorite topics—the stories behind…

Over the past few years I find I’ve written a great deal about war, which is odd because I’m supposed to be a professor of English literature. And I find I’ve given the Second…

There are times when you feel you are witnessing the precise moment when science fiction crosses over into science. I don’t mean the advent of gadgetry like voice-recognition software or…

There are times when you feel you are witnessing the precise moment when science fiction crosses over into science. I don’t mean the advent of gadgetry like voice-recognition software or…