“What had driven us apart? What was so important that it had turned us into strangers, even today?”
Story
Posted inNonfiction, Story
How One Magazine Shaped Investigative Journalism in America
The following story comes recommended by Ben Marks, senior editor for Collectors Weekly: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s most recent history, The Bully Pulpit, chronicles the intertwined lives of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, often in excruciating detail, from Roosevelt’s struggles with the bosses of his Republican party to the fungal infections that plagued Taft’s groin. […]
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
‘There Is Nothing New in Wall Street’: A Stock Trader’s Life in the 1920s
Edwin Lefèvre | Reminiscences of a Stock Operator | 1923 Our latest Longreads First Chapter comes recommended by Michelle Legro: Long before the “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort made his first million or snorted his first line of cocaine, turn-of-the-century trader Jesse Livermore, the “Great Bear of Wall Street,” accumulated over $100 million short-selling stocks before the […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Appetite of Abundance: On the Benefits of Being Eaten
J.B. MacKinnon | Orion | July 2013 | 12 minutes (2,875 words) Our latest Longreads Member Pick comes from Orion magazine and J.B. MacKinnon, author of The Once and Future World. Thanks to Orion and MacKinnon for sharing it with the Longreads community. They’re also offering a free trial subscription here. * * *
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Ingenious
How to spend your entire income building a car to travel 100 miles on a gallon of gas.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
‘Quebrado’: The Life and Death of a Young Activist
“If you survive me, tell them this: I never gave up.”
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Making of McKinsey: A Brief History of Management Consulting in America
Duff McDonald | The Firm, Simon & Schuster | 2013 | 12 minutes (3,000 words) The American Century In 1941 Time Inc. publisher Henry Luce coined the term “American Century” in a Life magazine editorial. He was describing the country’s global economic and political dominance leading up to World War II. But Luce was also correct in the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
‘It Is An Opportunity for Great Joy’: The Power of Narration & Medicine
Jalees Rehman | December 2012 | 8 minutes (1,957 words) Jalees Rehman is a cell biologist and physician at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who’s been featured on Longreads in the past. Below is an essay first posted at SciLogs, which he has allowed us to repost here for the Longreads community. * * * […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
First Chapters: ‘You Are One of Them,’ by Elliott Holt
Elliott Holt | The Penguin Press | 2013 | 12 minutes (2,854 words) Our latest First Chapter is from Elliott Holt’s novel, You Are One of Them. Thanks to Holt and The Penguin Press for sharing it with the Longreads community. * * * Prologue In Moscow I was always cold. I suppose that’s what Russia […]
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Transport: On Leaving New York for Rehab in Minnesota
“I learned to drive. But I never liked it.”