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Longreads
The staff of Longreads.

Our first Longreads Member perk: A digital subscription to the New York Review of Books (Updated)

UPDATE: This offer is now closed (as of 7/19/2011). Thanks to NYRB and all the Longreads Members who signed up!

Last month we introduced the (completely optional) Longreads Membership, and we’ve been thrilled with the response so far. I wanted to personally thank everyone for their support and encouragement.

We’re also excited to announce the first official perk for our Longreads Members: a free, three-month digital subscription to the New York Review of Books.

The NYRB team—who have supported us from the beginning—are offering this perk to all current Longreads Members, as well as the next 100 people who purchase a one-year Longreads Membership.

We hope to continue offering occasional free perks to Longreads Members as a thank-you for your support of our service. It might be a digital subscription, like today’s perk, or it might just be something we think you’ll like because you have really great taste. 

Thanks again.

copymattt:

Every time I think @markarms couldn’t get any more genius with Longreads.com, he goes and adds some brilliant piece of functionality I hadn’t even considered.

Introducing automatic #longreads aggregation – No sign up, no reg, no passwords, no crap. If you’ve ever tweeted the hashtag, then you’ve already got an account. Just go to longreads.com/(YOURTWITTERNAME) and there they are. 

And if you’ve been in a coma for the last year, and have no-idea what I’m talking about, here’s a run-down of the brilliance that is longreads.com

Thanks Matt. 

Longreads power users, have you shared your #longreads page yet? Follow the above instructions, then share your reading lists.

Now on Longreads.com: Community Picks and (Optional!) Become a Longreads Member

Fun fact: Longreads turned 2 years old last month. 

Since then, our community has blown up into something bigger but still just as wonderful. 

So today we’re launching Community Picks, a new section on Longreads designed to showcase all the amazing stories you’re sharing every day. Community Picks features the most popular and recent tweets on the #longreads hashtag. Go take a look around.

We’re excited about this, because it’s the community that powers Longreads, and we wanted to find ways to better highlight everyone’s diverse reading tastes.

Here’s another nice thing: You can also share your own reading list based on recent stories you’ve tweeted as #longreads. (Here’s Michelle Legro’s list as an excellent example.) If you’re a regular Longreader, type your Twitter username into this URL to see them: http://www.longreads.com/usernamehere. You can add to the list by tweeting stories with the #longreads tag. 

There are still some quirks, but we’re excited to keep building. If you see anything strange, or if you do not want to be featured in the Community Picks section, drop me a note (mark@longreads.com).

And a few thank yous: Longreads is powered with support from TwitterReadability and Instapaper, so we’d like to thank all of them for their help over the past several months. 

***

One last thing: Help us keep growing and become a Longreads Member

Today I’m also launching a fund-raising campaign that I hope will be successful enough to keep building Longreads and the services associated with it.

For $3 a month, you can become a Longreads Member, which will get you early access to new features, and hopefully some other very small, modest perks in the future. If you buy a one-year subscription upfront, you’ll save $6 and you’ll get a limited-edition Longreads Travel Mug.

This is all totally optional—Longreads will remain free for all users. That said, a Longreads Membership is a great way to show your support for the service and ensure that we continue to grow. 

Thanks to the entire Longreads community for a great two years. More soon.

The Atlantic: 10 Essential #Longreads on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda from The Atlantic archives

The Atlantic: 10 Essential #Longreads on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda from The Atlantic archives

shakespeareandshoes:

soupsoup:

Rob Sheffield and company at Rolling Stone Longreads (Taken with Instagram at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe)

such a wonderful discussion tonight! sammie rubes and i were sitting way in the back but still really enjoyed the journalism war stories and advice

Thanks everyone for a fun night with Rolling Stone, Longreads and Housing Works. Packed house and excellent audience questions for Rob Sheffield, Jeff Goodell, Brian Hiatt and Will Dana.

rollingstone:

If you’re in NYC, please come to our Night of Long-Form Journalism panel Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Housing Works, which we’re presenting in conjunction with Longreads.

To get you ready for the panel, we’ve collected a couple great stories from each of the three panelists: Jeff Goodell, Brian Hiatt and Rob Sheffield. 

Jeff Goodell:

The Dark Lord of Coal Country, Nov. 29, 2010: The Rolling Stone investigation that forced the resignation of Don Blankenship, the coal industry’s dirtiest CEO

As the World Burns, Jan. 6, 2010: How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most agressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming

Brian Hiatt: 

Billy Corgan, Rock God Interrupted, Jan. 3, 2011: The infinite sadness and unlikely redemption of the last Pumpkin standing

Lady Gaga, New York Doll, June 11, 2009: Gaga worships Warhol. Kisses girls (for real). And she’s the biggest new pop star of 2009

Rob Sheffield:

Rocklahoma: Still Hair Metal After All These Years, Dec. 27, 2007: Welcome to the festival where Eighties hair bands and those who love them gather to headbang and ponder the passage of time

Britney Spears, Oops!…I Did It Again, album review

Coming April 13th!

Rolling Stone and Longreads present: A night of long-form journalism.

Join us at Housing Works in NYC for a special panel with Rob Sheffield, Jeff Goodell, and more. Moderated by Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana

7 pm. Free. More details here

Gerald Marzorati: Five Longreads for Opening Day

Gerald Marzorati, a former editor of the New York Times Magazine, is an Assistant Managing Editor of the Times


“Early Innings,” by Roger Angell. (The New Yorker, Feb. 24, 1992) (sub. required)

America’s baseball belletrist here writes of how he came to love the game.

“The Silent Season of a Hero,” by Gay Talese. (Esquire, July 1966)

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? The author finds him in retirement, uneasily.

“The Streak of Streaks,” by Stephen Jay Gould. (The New York Review of Books, Aug. 18, 1988)

More DiMaggio, this from the renowned paleontologist and ponderer of evolution—contemplating, here, what it means to have a hot streak (i.e., to cheat death).

“Final Twist of the Drama,” by George Plimpton. (Sports Illustrated, April 22, 1974)

The boyishly witty inventor of field-level participatory journalism here is a careful observer—of everything surrounding Henry Aaron’s home-run that broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime record.

“Coach Fitz’s Management Theory,” by Michael Lewis. (The New York Times Magazine, March 28, 2004)

A piece I coaxed Michael to write—about his high-school baseball coach, and much, much more.

The Doree Chronicles: Stuff I Read This Week That Was Good

The Doree Chronicles: Stuff I Read This Week That Was Good

Princeton vs. UCLA: Reflections on a Historic Upset

Princeton vs. UCLA: Reflections on a Historic Upset