“He was a convicted felon who found a niche in Seattle’s construction boom. As the region’s fortunes rose and fell—and rose again—so did his. Then a fatal boating accident came for Michael Powers’s fairy-tale ending.”
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Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2020: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Posted inStory
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2021
Pravesh Bhardwaj read and and shared 304 short stories on the #longreads Twitter hashtag in 2020. Here are his favorites.
Posted inHighlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
Risking Everything for a Better Life
Migrants looking for greater opportunity, safety, and freedom sometimes stow away in the wheel wells of jetliners in a bid to escape.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Cain and Abel and Oil
This might strike you as a wildly self-serving theory: that the epic rift tearing apart this preposterously wealthy family was the fault not of the lifelong ne’er-do-well, who’d spent four decades partying his way through a family fortune, but of his outwardly much more responsible and sober brother, who had run the family business for […]
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2020: Investigative Reporting
Our top picks for investigative journalism this year.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Novelist Charles Portis Was a True Original
Every Portis fan has a different favorite passage from his novels, but they agree on one thing: no one wrote like Portis.
Posted inEditor's Pick
What It’s Like to Grow Up With More Money Than You’ll Ever Spend
An interview with filmmaker, activist and heiress Abigail Disney, in which she speaks very frankly about how inheriting a fortune can compromise one’s moral compass and corrupt the soul.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Malmaison to More-Than-Monarch
“When they got home, Josephine refused to move her beloved dog Fortuné off the bed to make room for Napoleon. When his mistress’ new husband tried to push him aside, the pug bit him. Sometimes dogs just know.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn’t Go Well.
In 2009 the IRS created a special team to investigate when and how the extremely wealthy were avoiding taxes. Reporters Jesse Eisenger and Paul Kiel illustrate how that team was stymied using the case of the heir to a German automative parts fortune.
