In Guernica, Nathan Deuel visits the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and daughter and writes about how the recent tech boom has changed the city. Here, Deuel recalls being in college during the first dot-com boom when working for a website felt like a novel idea, and before, as he later writes in […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. The Worst Day Of My Life Is Now New York’s Hottest Tourist Attraction Steve Kandell | BuzzFeed | May 20, 2014 | […]
Posted inReading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Photo: Richard Barnes *** Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. No Exit: ‘Your Feeling of Autonomy Is a Fantasy’ Gideon Lewis-Kraus | Wired | April 23, 2014 | 42 minutes […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Big Problem with Financial Journalism
One great problem with financial journalism, especially in the decades leading up to the crash, has been that it’s often written in an argot understandable only to the already highly financially literate. Andrew Ross Sorkin doesn’t usually employ such specialized language. This has led to the mistaken belief that he’s explaining the industry to regular […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Financial Reality of a $200,000 Book Advance
In 2008 I sold a book-in-progress for $200,000 ($170,000 after commission, to be paid in four installments), which still seems to me like a lot of money. At the time, though, it seemed infinite. The resulting book—a “paperback original,” as they’re called—has sold around 8,000 copies, which is about a fifth of what it needed […]
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The rise and fall of one of China’s most powerful politicians: At the opening of the annual Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on March 2, Bo showed up and put on a brave face for the 3,000 assembled delegates and journalists. But in internal government meetings, Bo was livid, haranguing Chongqing officials and telling them […]
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Alfred Hitchcock made Tippi Hedren into a star—and then sabotaged her career when she rejected his advances: It started at the end of The Birds. To depict the notorious final sequence, when Melanie is attacked by dozens of birds on her own in an upstairs bedroom, Hedren was reassured that mechanical birds would be used. […]
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A man receives a non-negotiable junk mail check for $95,093.35 in the mail, and decides to deposit it in his bank account as a joke. It actually clears his account: The first friend I phoned informed me that it was no mistake at all. Just standard bank policy, crediting my account with the dollar amount […]
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Faith, technology and Christianity in Silicon Valley: The internet and social media present a conundrum for Chuck DeGroat, the pastor at City Church. With a congregation of hip modern professionals, from architects and financial advisers to programmers and venture capitalists, he can’t afford not to have a Facebook page, Twitter handle, or website. And yet, […]
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In 1972, Uganda’s President Idi Amin exiled Ugandan Asians from the country, who left behind most of their belongings and lives for new ones in other countries—particularly Great Britain: Dr. Mumtaz Kassam was only 16 when, stateless, she arrived at a reception centre in Leamington Spa – one of several across the country. Her parents […]
