The Longreads Blog

[Fiction]

One time we roadtripped across the country with Animal Brooks, and he almost got run over by a pickup truck partway through Alberta. It was me and my twenty-year-old girlfriend Vic and him, him in his cadpat jumpsuit, Vic in her flannel logger coat and her neon hair that glowed like a bush-lamp. We’d known Animal since grade school: the north-born shitkicker, like Mick Dundee. A lone ranger, or something. Then in 2002 the three of us crammed into his ‘67 Camaro to tear-ass down the Trans-Canada at eighty miles an hour. Vic and me had a couple hundred bucks and time to kill before she went back to university.

“The Dead Roads.” — D.W. Wilson, The Guardian, BBC National Short Story award winner

See more fiction #longreads from Pen/O. Henry award winners

“He felt something leaving his body. He felt forgiveness. What had been pure fear, pent up for years, was now compassion. He didn’t hate Mark Stroman. He pitied him. Thinking of this man sitting in a prison cell, counting down the days he has left on this planet, he wondered if he could help him in some way. He remembered what the prosecutor had told him, and he didn’t want to break the law, but Bhuiyan wanted to talk with the man. He wanted to tell the monster haunting his dreams that he had forgiven him.”

“Could You Forgive the Man Who Shot You in the Face?” — Michael J. Mooney, D Magazine

See more #longreads from Michael J. Mooney

“This should have been Felisa Wolfe-Simon’s moment in the sun. But within days, researchers began to question Wolfe-Simon’s methodology and conclusions. Many of them cast aside traditions of measured commentary in peer reviewed periodicals and voiced their criticism directly on blogs and Twitter. Then, as the conflict spilled into the mainstream, the scientific community witnessed something few would have predicted: meaningful public engagement over a serious scientific issue.”

“Scientist in a Strange Land.” — Tom Clynes, Popular Science [Not single-page] 

See more #longreads from Popular Science

“Bezos claims he doesn’t think defensively. ‘Everything we do is driven by seeing opportunity rather than being worried about defending,’ he says. Given Apple’s inroads into the media business, that’s hard to believe. Bezos is magnanimous toward Jobs. ‘On a personal level we have a tremendous amount of respect for Apple and Steve. I think that’s returned,’ he says. ‘Our cultures start in the same place. Both companies like to invent, both companies like to pioneer, both companies start with the customer and work backwards. There’s a like-mindedness.’ Pause. ‘Are two companies like Amazon and Apple occasionally going to step on each others toes? Yes.’”

“The Omnivore.” — Brad Stone, Bloomberg Businessweek

See more #longreads from Bloomberg Buisnessweek

“Now, thanks to that pampering, upon his retirement in the winter of 1988 as the NFL’s alltime leading rusher, Walter Payton found himself burdened by a realization that had struck thousands of ex-athletes before him: I am bored out of my mind. When strangers asked, he talked about how thrilled he was to be free of the burdens of football. ‘I’m not going to miss the pounding,’ he told ABC’s Peter Jennings. ‘And the getting up at six and working out until dusk.’ The words were pure fantasy. He would miss it desperately. ‘He went from an abnormal existence as an athlete to a normal one,’ says Brittney, now 26. ‘How does anyone do that?’”

“The Hero No One Knew” — Jeff Pearlman, Sports Illustrated

See more #longreads from Sports Illustrated

(Fiction)

I didn’t hear that Duncan Pratt had been killed until I’d been out of the Army for two weeks and had gone four days without a single thought about that final year in Vietnam. If the phone had been disconnected on time, I would never have heard at all. A mutual buddy from military intelligence school called on his way to a year of bumming in Europe. He talked a long time before saying, I guess you heard that Duncan Pratt was killed. No, I said. How? He was killed by a mortar round in Pleiku, our friend said; and he hung up to catch a plane to Luxembourg.

“Moving Day.” — Robert Olen Butler, Fictionaut.

See more #longreads from Fictionaut

“The junior executives’ office at Thinkscope Visioncloud was nicer than any room within a fifty-mile radius of the “Office” studio. After I finished pitching one of my ideas for a low-budget romantic comedy, I was met with silence. One of the execs sheepishly looked at the other execs. He finally said, ‘Yeah, but we’re really trying to focus on movies about board games. People really seem to respond to those.’” 

“Flick Chicks.” — Mindy Kaling, The New Yorker

More #longreads: “A Long Day at ‘The Office’ with Mindy Kaling.” The New York Times magazine, Sept. 23, 2011

“I’ve been teaching high school social studies for 18 years, so it’s hard for me to be shocked by the behavior of students. But every once in a while, someone manages to surprise me. One day last year I looked up at the auditorium stage to hear one of my students deliver a speech that changed my idea of what it means to be an American.”

“The Making of Miss Hornet.” — John Waldron, This Land Press

See other #longreads about high school

“PAUL RUDD: When I talk to people who went to camp and they’re like, “Dude, that movie totally gets it,” I don’t know how to respond to that. Which part? The part of going into town for heroin? Or your chef humping a fridge?”

“The Ultimate Oral History of ‘Wet Hot American Summer.’” — Whitney Pastorek, Details magazine

Also see another of Pastorek’s #longreads: “The Complete Oral History of ‘Party Down’” Feb. 2011

“Yet, as a 2006 State Department report shows, U.S. officials have for years been aware of credible allegations that Raziq and his men participated in a cold-blooded massacre of civilians, the details of which have, until now, been successfully buried. And this, in turn, raises questions regarding whether U.S. officials may have knowingly violated a 1997 law that forbids assistance to foreign military units involved in human-rights violations.”

“Our Man in Kandahar.” — Matthieu Aikins, The Atlantic

See more #longreads from The Atlantic