How learning to swim at 24 led Syam Palakurthy to first-hand lessons in gentrification.
Search results
Longreads Best of 2017: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Who Gets to Be a Genius? A Reading List
Why does it often take decades, even centuries, for work by women to be “discovered” and appreciated?
Who Gets to Be a Genius? A Reading List
Why does it often take decades, even centuries, for work by women to be “discovered” and appreciated?
The ‘Artificial Intimacy’ of Reporter and Subject
Rebecca Mead lauds Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of journalist David Lipsky in the new film “The End of the Tour.”
David Foster Wallace on the Costs of Becoming a Professional Tennis Player
It’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we’ll invoke lush clichĂ©s about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight […]
Longreads Best of 2014: Our 10 Most Popular Exclusives of the Year
This year, Longreads worked with a group of outstanding writers and publishers to produce original stories and exclusives that hadn’t been previously published online. It was all funded with support from our Longreads Members. You can read them all here. Here’s a list of the 10 most popular stories we published this year. Join us to […]
David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact
David Foster Wallace saw clear lines between journalists and novelists who write nonfiction, and he wrestled throughout his career with whether a different set of rules applied to the latter category.
David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact
On David Foster Wallace, storytelling and the slippery line between fact and fiction: Before he sat down with the best tennis player on the planet for a noonday interview in the middle of the 2006 Wimbledon fortnight, David Foster Wallace prepared a script. Atop a notebook page he wrote, “R.Federer Interview Qs.” and below he […]
"She's been wearing a bra since fourth grade and I bet she gets her period." Great Dialogue from Great Writers
Nancy spoke to me as if she were my mother. “Margaret dear—you can’t possibly miss Laura Danker. The big blonde with the big you know whats!” “Oh, I noticed her right off,” I said. “She’s very pretty.” “Pretty!” Nancy snorted. “You be smart and stay away from her. She’s got a bad reputation.” “What do you […]

