The Book I Didn’t Write

“I didn’t write the book because the thought of it made me feel vaguely ill at all times. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it directly I was thinking about it. None of the thoughts were good.” Elmo Keep on the book about her father that she decided not to write.

Author: Elmo Keep
Source: The Awl
Published: Jul 25, 2014
Length: 6 minutes (1,668 words)

The Down And Dirty History Of TMZ

A profile of TMZ founder Harvey Levin and the tactics he used to create a gossip media empire. Anne Helen Petersen talked to several former employees to provide a behind-the-scenes account.

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Jul 24, 2014
Length: 31 minutes (7,955 words)

Latter-Day Saint

Maybe the hard road to self-acceptance is a road to God. A gay Mormon’s complicated journey.

Published: Jul 25, 2014
Length: 42 minutes (10,556 words)

What Do Chinese Dumplings Have to Do With Global Warming?

How the expansion of refrigeration in China is affecting climate change.

Published: Jul 25, 2014
Length: 18 minutes (4,699 words)

You Are Now Entering the Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann

“After a career of hanging out with neo-Nazis, pursuing sex workers, doing drugs, dropping thousand-page books the way Updike dropped short stories, and being suspected of being the Unabomber, Vollmann, without even meaning to, had managed to cross the last line of decorum. He had dared to abdicate his masculinity.”

“As for being suspected of being the Unabomber, William T. Vollmann was suspected of being the Unabomber.”

Published: Jul 24, 2014
Length: 29 minutes (7,435 words)

Burger King Is Run By Children

The brief history of a burger chain and its unlikely rebound, led by 33-year-old CEO Daniel Schwartz.

Published: Jul 24, 2014
Length: 13 minutes (3,418 words)

The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect

The story of how a Microsoft employee working on the Word team invented autocorrect.

Source: Wired
Published: Jul 22, 2014
Length: 12 minutes (3,034 words)

Pink Collar

When writers attack bad PR, the un­spoken heart of their criticism is the failure on the part of the publicist to adequately conceal that she is performing emotional work for money. Jennifer Pan on the gendered nature of PR, and other industries requiring emotional labor.

Source: Jacobin
Published: Jun 5, 2014
Length: 12 minutes (3,113 words)

Longreads’ Best of WordPress, Vol. 2

Here are 10 of our favorite stories right now from Autostraddle, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Toast, Walrus Magazine, and more.

Author: Mike Dang
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 23, 2014

The New Face of Hunger

One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough nutritious food to eat on a daily basis. Tracie McMillan talks to some of these families, while three photographers set out to different parts of the country to document what life looks like when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

Published: Jul 17, 2014
Length: 12 minutes (3,171 words)