Longreads

We've written more than a few times about Scott Turow, a brilliant author, but an absolute disaster as the Luddite-driven head of the Authors' Guild. During his tenure, he's done a disservice to…

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How Daniel Defoe's novel about London's 1665 plague can help us understand new media. No, really.The plague was abroad.Londoners knew not where it had come from, only that it was upon Holland. "It…

In the summer of 1978, a group of geologists traveled into Siberia and discovered a family that had not had outside contact with anyone in four decades:

"In some respects, Peskov makes clear, the taiga did offer some abundance: 'Beside the dwelling ran a clear, cold stream. Stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take.… Bilberries and raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right on the roof.'

"Yet the Lykovs lived permanently on the edge of famine. It was not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion. Dmitry built up astonishing endurance, and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk across his shoulders. More often than not, though, there was no meat, and their diet gradually became more monotonous. Wild animals destroyed their crop of carrots, and Agafia recalled the late 1950s as 'the hungry years.'"

By Slavoj Žižek. Exclusive on Boitempo’s Blog. Para a versão em português, clique aqui. Warning: the following article contains spoilers of The Dark Knight Trilogy. …

Since the United States Patent & Trade Office opened in 1790, it has required that every patent be accompanied by an illustration depicting the applicant's invention. But in the past 222 years,…

Amy Winehouse Mark Allan/WireImage This story is from the August 18th, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. Sitting in a popular Miami diner with rain pouring down outside, Amy Winehouse and her new husband,…

Image: COURTESY SIMON & SCHUSTER What a Plant Knows How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap

In September 1863, a local paper in Somerset, England, ran an article about a man and a woman from Taunton whose child had been stricken with scarlet fever. Depressingly common, a child suffering…