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Announcing the ‘Longreads: Best of 2011’ Ebook

Longreads Pick

Longreads: Best of 2011 includes seven of our favorite stories from the past year.

The ebook is a unique partnership with the writers and publishers—we want to help celebrate outstanding storytelling, and this is just another way for us to do it. Additionally, money from the ebook sales will be shared with the creators, and we’re excited to have them participating.

Publishers involved include: New York magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, This Recording, Popular Mechanics, The New York Times, GQ, and The Awl.

Source: longreads.com
Published: Jan 18, 2012

The next phase of George Lucas’s career, the making (and studios’ rejection) of his new Tuskegee Airmen film Red Tails, and who’s really to blame for the “nuking the fridge” idea in the last Indiana Jones film:

When I told Lucas that Spielberg had accepted the blame for nuking the fridge, he looked stunned. ‘It’s not true,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to protect me.’

In fact, it was Spielberg who ‘didn’t believe’ the scene. In response to Spielberg’s fears, Lucas put together a whole nuking-the-fridge dossier. It was about six inches thick, he indicated with his hands. Lucas said that if the refrigerator were lead-lined, and if Indy didn’t break his neck when the fridge crashed to earth, and if he were able to get the door open, he could, in fact, survive. ‘The odds of surviving that refrigerator — from a lot of scientists — are about 50-50,’ Lucas said.

“George Lucas Is Ready to Roll the Credits.” — Brian Curtis, The New York Times Magazine

Related: “Interview: Steven Spielberg on Jaws.” — Ain’t It Cool News, June 7, 2011

Another perspective on the city’s struggles, and the attempts to revive it:

A recent New York Times article lauded Detroit as a ‘Midwestern Tribeca’ of socially aware folk; but off of its bustling main drag, Corktown is surrounded by Detroit’s burned-out industrial structures and houses, weedy lots, and subsidized housing. For every white entrepreneur in an inner-city neighborhood, a score of young, college-educated kids live in dense, hip suburbs like Royal Oak and Ferndale. The Detroit perceived by artists like Catie and Marianne — often from privileged, suburban backgrounds — is radically different from the city visible to EMS workers. I have doubts about the city’s oft-vaunted creative scene, which I was part of for much of the year: to what extent were we dancing to electro-pop while Detroit burned?

“Letter from Detroit.” — Ingrid Norton, Los Angeles Review of Books

See more #longreads from the Los Angeles Review of Books

Letter from Detroit

Longreads Pick

Another perspective on the city’s struggles, and the attempts to revive it:

“A recent New York Times article lauded Detroit as a ‘Midwestern Tribeca’ of socially aware folk; but off of its bustling main drag, Corktown is surrounded by Detroit’s burned-out industrial structures and houses, weedy lots, and subsidized housing. For every white entrepreneur in an inner-city neighborhood, a score of young, college-educated kids live in dense, hip suburbs like Royal Oak and Ferndale. The Detroit perceived by artists like Catie and Marianne — often from privileged, suburban backgrounds — is radically different from the city visible to EMS workers. I have doubts about the city’s oft-vaunted creative scene, which I was part of for much of the year: to what extent were we dancing to electro-pop while Detroit burned?”

Published: Jan 17, 2012
Length: 13 minutes (3,401 words)

On the encouraging signs of change in Burma—from the end of press censorship to the release of some political prisoners. A report from inside, and questions about why the government is doing it:

Ever since the country’s longtime dictator, Than Shwe, stepped aside early last year, a remarkable thaw has appeared to be underway in Burma—and journalists have been among the prime beneficiaries. In June 2011, the government announced that magazines focusing on sports, technology, entertainment, health, and children’s topics no longer had to be submitted for censorship. Later, publications covering business, economics, law, or crime were also exempted. In October, U Tint Swe, head of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, made a mind-boggling statement during a rare interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA). ‘Press censorship,’ he said, ‘is nonexistent in most other countries as well as among our neighbors, and, as it is not in harmony with democratic practices, press censorship should be abolished in the near future.’ For the head of the censorship board to say this at all was astonishing, but for him to say it to a news organization like RFA, which is funded by the U.S. government and has been banned in Burma, was unthinkable. (Until recently, state media spouted melodramatic slogans about RFA and other external radio services running Burmese-language programs, calling them ‘killers in the airwaves’ and accusing them of producing a ‘skyful of lies.’)

“Drifting House.” — Emma Larkin, The New Republic

See also: “On Libya’s Revolutionary Road.” — Robert F. Worth, New York Times, March 30, 2011

Judith Clark was a new mom when she was arrested, along with three other militants, for armed robbery and murder in 1981. She remains in prison—and her daughter Harriet has no memory of her mother any other way:

The prison’s visiting center was her second living room. ‘When they got a new vending machine, it felt like new furniture in my house,’ Harriet said. The other children she met visiting their inmate moms fell into two groups: those who lost them to prison ‘within memory or before memory.’ She was puzzled when some were anguished that their mothers weren’t home for holidays and family events. Harriet had never had that experience to miss. ‘My mother lived in prison,’ she explained. ‘That was always the reality going backward and going forward.’

Harriet and her mother spent hours making creations with pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks. ‘I have no memories of not having my mother’s undivided attention,’ she said.

“A Young, Cold Heart.” — Tom Robbins, New York Times Magazine

More Robbins: “Tall Tales of a Mafia Mistress.” — Village Voice, Oct. 23, 2007

Before Wonder Woman there was Miss Fury, the first female superhero, introduced in 1941:

Miss Fury was created, written, and drawn by a woman, June Tarpé Mills, who published under the more sexually ambiguous Tarpé Mills. Had Miss Fury entered an enduring canon like DC’s, it’s possible that the template for female superheroes, as well as for superhero comic readership, would have depended more on the influence and perspective of actual women.

“Heroine Chic.” — Evie Nagy, Los Angeles Review of Books

See also: “Lynda Barry Will Make You Believe in Yourself.” — Dan Kois, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 27, 2011

Featured Longreader: Lexi Mainland, social media editor for The New York Times. See her story picks from Vanity Fair, New Yorker, The Atlantic and more on her #longreads page.

On modern manufacturing in the U.S. and the unskilled-skilled labor gap—with 92-year-old Standard Motor Products serving as a case study: 

Across America, many factory floors look radically different than they did 20 years ago: far fewer people, far more high-tech machines, and entirely different demands on the workers who remain. The still-unfolding story of manufacturing’s transformation is, in many respects, that of our economic age. It’s a story with much good news for the nation as a whole. But it’s also one that is decidedly less inclusive than the story of the 20th century, with a less certain role for people like Maddie Parlier, who struggle or are unlucky early in life.

“Making It in America.” — Adam Davidson, The Atlantic

See also: “The White House Looks for Work.” — Peter Baker, New York Times, Jan. 19, 2011

A man, brought to the U.S. as a toddler, is suddenly deported to Mexico. He’s now trying to get back:

The train had covered 10 miles through the high desert when it stopped at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint. An inspector and his canine walked by on the gravel path. Luna stifled his breath and prayed. Then he felt a sharp tug and a dog’s hot breath.

A German shepherd sank its teeth through Luna’s two shirts, locked onto his ribs and dragged him out from under the train. He clutched his side.

“Without a Country: Immigrant Tries to Get Back to the Life He Knew.” — Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

See also: “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” — Jose Antonio Vargas, New York Times, June 22, 2011