Most Popular #Longreads, last 7 days: Caravan magazine on India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, plus Bloomberg Businessweek and Smithsonian Magazine.
The Longreads Blog
→
Featured Longreader: Barbara Mack, teacher/theologian. See her story picks from The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Morning News, and more on her #longreads page.
→
“Writers rooms may vary in terms of the decor or the available food (“Everybody Loves Raymond” was always the champ in that regard), but the basic atmosphere is the same from room to room, show to show. You will have a large space (in this case the common room of a suite of offices), usually around a table (here a big coffee table) where the writers can gather to eat, to brainstorm and to argue about completely unrelated matters, which sometimes end up fueling stories and other times are just procrastination while everyone waits for the next good idea.”
More #longreads: Judd Apatow and “That 70’s Show” creator Mark Brazill exchange e-mails in “Don’t Have a Cow, Man.” Harper’s magazine, March 2002
→
“They accuse us of being misguided and of spreading half-truths. They accuse us of being emotional. Well, if we are emotional, it is because this pipeline threatens our water, our health, our homes, and our way of life. If we are misguided and spreading half-truths, it is because TransCanada has misguided us and told us only half the truth.”
“Tar Sands Showdown in the Nebraska Sandhills.” — Ted Genoways, OnEarth magazine
Another of Ted Genoways’s #longreads: “The Spam Factory’s Dirty Secret,” Mother Jones, June 27, 2011
→
Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Stories from London Review of Books, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, Orion Magazine, and a guest pick from arts journalist Suzi Steffen.
→
Remembering “Rapper’s Delight” producer Sylvia Robinson, who died yesterday.
“He would say something every now and then, like ‘Throw your hands in the air,’ and they’d do it. If he’d said, ‘Jump in the river,’ they’d have done it.” Inspiration struck. “A spirit said to me, ‘Put a concept like that on a record and it will be the biggest thing you ever had.’”
→
“The real hourly median wage in New York between 1990 and 2007 fell by almost 9 percent. Young men and women aged twenty-five to thirty-four with a bachelor’s degree and a year-round job in New York saw their earnings drop 6 percent. Middle-income New Yorkers—defined broadly by the FPI as those drawing incomes between approximately $29,000 and $167,000—experienced a 19 percent decrease in earnings.”
“The Reign of the One Percenters.” — Christopher Ketcham, Orion Magazine
See another of Christopher Ketcham’s #longreads: “Meet the Man Who Lives on Zero Dollars,” DETAILS, July 2009
→
Featured Longreader: Amy Hordes of Phaidon Press. See her story picks from the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Republic and more on her #longreads page.
→
“Some people think that arresting Bosco would unravel the peace deal between Congo and Rwanda,” he says. “I think that that’s not true. You could certainly make a case that arresting him could be stabilizing.” He’s divisive within the former CNDP. He’s become an incredibly powerful mineral smuggler, the cause of much of Congo’s conflict. Also: “He’s a living insult to international justice, and the fact that he wines and dines next to the largest peacekeeping mission in the world in full sight? And everybody knows where he is, and logistically speaking, he would not be very difficult to arrest.”
“I Can Find an Indicted Warlord. So Why Isn’t He in The Hague?” — Mac McClelland, Mother Jones
→
“Which city do you pity most?” I ask just before the elevator doors close.
They laugh and in unison say, “Vallejo!”

You must be logged in to post a comment.