The Longreads Blog

David Bowie, 1947-2016

Illustration by: Helen Green

The legendary musician died on Sunday of cancer. At the Awl, Alex Balk writes: “If you are under the age of 40 you live in a world he helped make, whether you’re aware of it or not. His importance transcends his work in a way that only a few other artists of his generation can claim.” Here are six stories about the rock star who left a mark on music, fashion, and art. Read more…

In Praise of Polarizing Food

Canned sardines turn many Americans off to fresh sardines, which is a shame. In Tin House‘s 2009 Appetites Issue, Jeff Koehler shares the little fish’s pleasures, describing how eating canned sardines in his vagabond youth led him to savoring fresh sardines as an adult, which culminated in years of culinary experimentation in his adopted home of Barcelona. Koehler’s essay was reprinted in the Best Food Writing 2010 anthology and is for anyone who’s ever loved something other people find gross.

Sardinas en escabeche became part of my repertoire, and I still enjoy it in autumn when the hues and scents of the dish feel right for the cool, clear days. Eventually, I learned to prepare sardines in many different ways. At home we like them pan-grilled and eaten with plump grapes. Or grilled and crowning a slice of toasted country bread piled with strips of roasted red peppers, eggplant, and onions. Or batter-dipped and fried with slices of acidic apple. These days, my two girls love it when I bury a mess of sardines whole under a mound of coarse sea salt, and then bake the lot in a hot oven for 15 minutes. They enthusiastically take turns breaking open the salt crust with a wooden mallet while my wife and I scramble to dig out the succulent fish—moist and completely cooked in their own juices—before the girls crush them.

But, without a doubt, the most pleasurable way to eat fresh sardines is a la brasa, grilled outside in the open air over hot embers. The flavors are at their robust finest, the flesh sparkling and briny, shaded with smoky oils. Inside, that distinct smell of searing sardines is overpowering, even pungent (and immediately alerts every neighbor as to what’s on the stove), but outside, among green leaves and dusty loam, or on a sandy beach with sea breezes, it’s evocatively, stirringly aromatic.

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Resolving to Read, Write, and Travel More in 2016

Let’s be real: My 2016 resolutions are intentionally vague. I tend toward self-loathing, so settling on achievable goals is important for my mental health. But I’m still excited for a fresh year and a fresh start, even if time is a social construct. My intentionally vague, utterly achievable resolutions are as follows: Read more…

10 Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2016

Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li (Photo by Don Feria/Getty Images for The MacArthur Foundation Awards, via Wikimedia Commons)

Below is a guest post from Mumbai-based writer-filmmaker—and longtime #longreads contributor—Pravesh Bhardwaj (@AuteurPravesh). Read more…

‘Hey, Friend, All Asians Are Not Interchangeable!’: Nicole Chung Weighing Responses to Casual Racism

Photo from ABC, Flickr

The social pressure on people of color to keep the peace, not get mad, just make sure everyone keeps having a nice time — even when we hear these remarks in public, at our workplaces and schools, in our own homes and from our friends’ mouths — can be overwhelming, bearing down on us in so many situations we do not see coming and therefore cannot avoid. What does our dignity matter, what do our feelings amount to, when we could embarrass white people we care about? When our white relatives or friends or colleagues might experience a moment’s discomfort, anxiety, or guilt?

–At The Toast, Nicole Chung writes about a casually racist comment of the they-all-look-the-same variety made at her white in-laws’ holiday table. It’s still been haunting her, right into the new year, leaving her racking her brain, wondering: Was the woman who made the comment ignorant or being passive aggressive? Should Chung have spoken up, and if she did, what would she have said, with what tone? Should her husband have said something? Would saying something have ruined the rest of the night? What difference would it make?

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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

New Haven. Photo: Wally Gobetz, Flickr

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Kidnapping a Nazi General: Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Perfect Heist

W. Stanley Moss's drawing of the Kreipe abduction. Via Wikimedia Commons .

Patrick Leigh Fermor | Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation in Crete | New York Review Books | November 2015 | 31 minutes (8,432 words)

Below is an excerpt from Abducting a General, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s recently published memoir of a remarkable military operation in Crete: the kidnapping of a Nazi general. It was the only such kidnapping to have been successfully undertaken by the Allies. During his lifetime Leigh Fermor was Britain’s greatest travel writer, best known for A Time of Gifts. As recommended by Longreads contributing editor Dana Snitzky Read more…

‘My Depression’ Author Elizabeth Swados on Her Brother’s Mental Illness, Homelessness and Early Death

Photo via NYCReligion

The theater and lit worlds suffered a great loss this week with the passing, Tuesday, of Elizabeth Swados, 64, a prolific writer and composer of groundbreaking, socially conscious musicals like “Runaways” and a collaboration with Garry Trudeau on a production of “Doonesbury.” She was the author several novels, memoirs and children’s books.

Most recently, Swados published My Depression: A Picture Book, a graphic memoir about her struggle with depression. It was made into an animated HBO documentary, which aired in July.

But long before she wrote about her own mental illness, Swados wrote about her brother’s. In an excerpt from her memoir, The Four of Us: The Story of a Family, which appeared in The New York Times Magazine in August 1991, she told the story of her brother, Lincoln, who suffered from schizophrenia, and died homeless in New York City in the late eighties.

Several months before my brother’s housing crisis reached its peak, I was walking down Broadway on my way to a Korean deli. I saw two derelicts seated in the middle of the sidewalk. They were dressed in layers of rags and having a heated argument about Jesus Christ. One of them had paraphernalia spread around him in a semicircle, as if to sell his wares. But none of his rags or rusty pieces of metal or torn papers was a recognizable item. He wore a jaunty cap pulled to one side, and there was tinsel in his filthy hair. His face was smeared black. A few steps farther along, I realized the “derelict” was my brother. I leaned down next to him, softly said his name and waited. He stared at me for several moments and didn’t recognize me at first. When he finally saw that it was me, he let out a cry like a man who’d had a stroke and couldn’t express his joyous thoughts. We embraced for a long, long time. His smell meant nothing to me.

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How Homelessness Looks in the Tech Boom

It’s a familiar American tale: people living in poverty amid great wealth. In Palo Alto, California, where the per capita income is over twice the state average, the tech boom has driven real estate values up, and evictions have left many renters homeless. In the New Republic, Monica Potts profiles an elderly couple who lived in their van while searching for affordable housing, and portrays the hostilities and NIMBYism that Silicon Valley’s homeless face, as well as the social services available to them.

One night, about a month after leaving Cubberley, the police pulled Suzan and James over. Their registration was expired. “This officer, he got a wild hair, and he said, ‘I’m going to impound your car,’ and called the tow truck.” Suzan told me. They got out of the car. Without pushing and demanding, she realized, she was never going to get out of the situation. She told me she said to the officer, “This is our home, and if you impound it we will not have a home.” He insisted. “I said ‘That’s fine. You do that. We will stay right here. I will put the beds out, I will put what we need here, right here on the sidewalk.” Other officers arrived and talked to them. They asked Suzan whether, surely, there was some other place they could go. “I said, ‘We have no place to go, and we’re staying right here.’ I was going to make a stink. They were going to know about it.” Suzan told me people were poking their heads out of their homes, and she realized the bigger fuss she made, the more likely officers might decide just to leave them alone.

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The Evangelical Scientist Preaching Climate Change

Photo: Nattu

The weather in the United States this “autumn” has been bizarre. I live in Maryland, and we’ve had seventy degrees fahrenheit one day, forty degrees the next, then sleet, then sunshine—and I’ve never been able to traipse around town sans winter coat in December before.

With that in mind, let’s revisit Ann Neumann’s 2014 interview with Katharine Hayhoe, “climate evangelist.” Flouting the stereotype of the anti-science Evangelical Christian, Hayhoe champions the reality and urgency of climate change. She is conservative in her politics and her spirituality, sure, but she’s deeply concerned for the planet’s welfare and sees environmental protection as a Christian imperative. Needless to say, her stance is threatening to many Evangelical Christians, including Republican politicians. For others, it’s the permission they need to face reality.

It’s a common perception that science and religion are mutually exclusive. But there are many scientists who would consider themselves to be spiritual people. Not only that, but in the case of climate change—a scientific issue with strong moral implications and difficult decisions to be made—it’s essential to connect the science to our values. And for many of us, our values come from our faith.

For Christians, doing something about climate change is about living out our faith—caring for those who need help, our neighbors here at home or on the other side of the world, and taking responsibility for this planet that God created and entrusted to us. My faith tells me that God does want people to understand climate change and do something about it.

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