“I learned to drive. But I never liked it.”
Nonfiction
The Time Jason Zengerle and a Gorilla Stalked Michael Moore for Might Magazine
Jason Zengerle | Might magazine | 1997 | 19 minutes (4,685 words) Introduction Thanks to our Longreads Members’ support, we tracked down a vintage story from Dave Eggers’s Might Magazine. It’s from Jason Zengerle, a correspondent for GQ and contributing editor for New York magazine who’s been featured on Longreads often in the past.
‘You’re in Trouble. Am I Right?’: My Unsentimental Education
Debra Monroe | 2012 | 20 minutes (5,101 words) Debra Monroe is the author of six books, including the memoir “My Unsentimental Education” which will appear in October 2015. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The American Scholar, Doubletake, The Morning News and The Southern Review, and she is frequently shortlisted for The […]
Caught Up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a New Religious Movement Researcher
Susan J. Palmer | University of Toronto Press | 2001 | 38 minutes (9,328 words) The below article comes recommended by Longreads contributing editor Julia Wick, and we’d like to thank the author, Susan J. Palmer, for allowing us to share it with the Longreads community.
Required Reading from Journalism Professors
Below, six syllabi from journalism professors on what you should be reading. * * * 1. Journalism 494: Pollner Seminar In Narrative Non-Fiction With Esquire’s Chris Jones (University of Montana) “The purpose of this course is to teach students how to write publishable magazine-length narrative non-fiction: In other words, my aim is to help you […]
On Muppets & Merchandise: How Jim Henson Turned His Art into a Business
“He viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas.”
‘He’s Our Baby’: What Happens When a Child Is Placed in Foster Care
“Who should get to keep a child: the parents who nurse and tend him, or the parents who brought him into the world?”
What Life Was Like for an Executioner’s Family in the 16th Century
Joel F. Harrington | The Faithful Executioner, Farrar, Straus and Giroux | March 2013 | 15 minutes (3,723 words) Below is an excerpt from the book The Faithful Executioners, by Joel F. Harrington, which was recently featured as a Longreads Member Pick. Thanks to our Longreads Members for making these stories possible—sign up to join Longreads […]
The Woman Who Counted Fish
Conservation, domestication and the future of the animal kingdom.
The Short Life of Robert Earl Hughes, Who Weighed Half a Ton By His Late Twenties
Jane R. LeBlanc is a freelance journalist who writes for the Dallas Observer where she covers the local comedy scene and anything strange and interesting. She has written for Denton Live, Mayborn magazine, Spirit magazine and the Denton Record-Chronicle. She has a humor blog, Everyone Hates You, where she pontificates about everyday life. You can find her online. Inspired […]
