An Interview with “America’s Test Kitchen” founder Christopher Kimball on how cooking is like woodworking, the business model behind “Cooks Illustrated,” and the awesome powers of baking soda and gelatin.
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Really Old Stuff: A Reading List About Our Prehistoric Past
Four stories that take us millennia back into the past.
Meet the Kids Who Don’t Want Toys For Christmas
It had been only two days since Ruth Soukup had re-organized her daughters’ room, and there were still a few toys on the floor that her kids, then three and six years old, refused to pick up. “I would say to the girls, ‘If you can’t take care of your stuff, I’m going to have to take it all away,’” Soukup recalls. It was an empty threat, until that afternoon when Soukup realized she genuinely “wanted it all gone.”
A Professional Writer Never Skips Exercise
Back from dropping off the kids, and ready to write! Except I definitely have to exercise first. It’s going to be 90 degrees out there today and the dogs need to run and I don’t want to kill them—or worse, maim them and then decline chest-cracking at the billion-dollar emergency dog cancer spa. I know […]
The Art and Science of Failure
We are excited to share a reading (and watching!) list on science and failure from guest contributor Louise Lief. In 2014 Louise Lief began the Science and the Media project, an initiative that explores how science relates to our everyday lives. She is the former deputy director of the International Reporting Project.
The Future Is Dark: Uncertainty's Creative Power
Rebecca Solnit, writing in The New Yorker, offers a celebration of the imagination’s best ally: the ability to say “I don’t know.” Solnit looks at subtlety and subjectivity in her own writing, and in that of a hero of the art, Virginia Woolf: During my years as an art critic I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something […]
The Power of Two
An excerpt from Shenk’s forthcoming book, Powers of Two, exploring creativity in pairs, and what made John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s collaboration so powerful.
Longreads Best of 2014: Business Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in business writing.
Lorrie Moore on the Difficulties of Constructing a Writing Life
In The Paris Review, the celebrated writer reveals the struggles of creativity.
Science, Chance, and Emotion with Real Cosima
Through her work on clone-thriller Orphan Black, science consultant Cosima Herter has helped open our eyes to the possibilities and perils of synthetic biology and the pursuit of genetic perfection.
