The best stories of the week, as chosen by the editors of Longreads.
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Posted inCommentary, Nonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
Longreads Best of 2016: Here Are All of Our No. 1 Story Picks from This Year
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2016. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Trouble in the Bloomberg Solar System
The Bloomberg was often seen inside the company it built as a sort of heavenly body. Dan Doctoroff likened it to the sun, a “life-giving force” that sustains its orbiting planets of business and media ventures. The CEO kept a model of the solar system near his desk, with a tiny replica of The Bloomberg […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Burger King Generates Buzz on a Budget
Burger King likes being edgy, Schwan says, and it has proved that it doesn’t mind doing things that might make other brands blush. In August, as the company pushed a new spicy version of its chicken fries—a cult favorite the chain returned to the menu after a flood of social media requests—it tweeted a picture […]
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
A Simpler Cup of Coffee
From backlash to counter-backlash, coffee culture endures in all its glorious fussiness.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A Very Brief History of Americans Playing Softball with Their Co-Workers
Americans have been playing softball with their co-workers since the game grew out of several variants of baseball in the late 19th century. In 1895, Louis Rober, a lieutenant in the Minneapolis fire department, organized games of “kittenball” to entertain firefighters between runs. Blue-collar company teams proliferated over the next half-century. Office workers joined in later, […]
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
Five Stories About Espionage
Today’s spying relies on social media, surveillance, coercion and ambition.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Developing Strawberry 2.0
California produces 29% of the world’s strawberries, but the ample water, cheap labor, chemicals and climate that support the state’s output are changing. In Bloomberg Business, Dune Lawrence writes about a breeder at Driscoll’s who’s trying create a strawberry that requires fewer chemicals, less water and less oversight. Having spent decades building a brand known […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Billionaires Do Burning Man
Like all people who hate Burning Man, I enjoy nothing more than reading articles about Burning Man. In February, Felix Gillette chronicled the semi-clad class warfare at last year’s Burning Man for Bloomberg Businessweek. Despite being a festival based on radical self-reliance, Black Rock City is seemingly overrun with tech billionaires setting up their own exclusive festivals-within-a-festival; ultra-luxe camps that […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Start Your Own Micronation
Liberland is one of Europe’s newest would-be countries. Czech politician Vit Jedlicka and two fellow libertarians founded it in mid-April, claiming about 2.7 square miles of no man’s land between Croatia and Serbia. The idea is to create a “European Singapore,” where taxes are voluntary, Jedlicka told Bloomberg Business recently. Writing for the BBC, Rose Eveleth took […]
