“They’re a little eccentric” is a phrase I suspect most of us have heard used to describe a certain kind of memorable person. For me, it evokes my childhood dentist — an elderly man who favored colorful bow ties and humming loudly as he worked, and who once wagged his finger in my face and […]
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Posted inNonfiction
A Crying Public Shame
Dialogue, Twitter-style: you get called out on social media. People pile on to you. Other people pile on to the pile-oners. Soon everyone’s anxious or angry or both, no one’s really talking (or listening), and a few tech CEOs are buying new houses in Jackson Hole.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
In Defense of Schadenfreude
Historian Tiffany Watt Smith argues that schadenfreude, the joy we derive from another’s misfortune, is just a natural part of the very complex emotional responses we have as human beings.
Posted inNonfiction
The Gilded Age of (Unpaid) Internet Writing
How ’90s webzines heralded the best — and worst — of today’s online media landscape.
Posted inReading List
Strange Magic: Four Stories About Disney’s Dark Side
Revisit Disney through the eyes of these authors and see the good, the bad, and the creepy.
Posted inReading List
Strange Magic: Four Stories About Disney’s Dark Side
Revisit Disney through the eyes of these authors and see the good, the bad, and the creepy.
Posted inBooks, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2015: Under-Recognized Books
Books that deserved more attention in 2015.
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Silly, Funny Stories About Really Serious Things’: A Chat With Writer Jon Ronson
An interview with the journalist (see his recent stories) about what makes a good story: “I spent three months and I just couldn’t do it. And the reason was because I kept on meeting people who worked in the credit industry and they were really boring. I couldn’t make them light up the page. And, […]
Posted inUncategorized
“A Chat with Writer Jon Ronson.” —Elise Czajkowski, The Awl Stories by Ronson on Longreads
Posted inUncategorized
A writer visits the home of Bryan Saunders, an artist known for his self-portraits created under the influence of a variety of drugs: We turn to the next one. ‘Whoa,’ I say. This one could not be less Xanax-like. The drawing is spindly and paranoid, and the page is patterned with real-life bullet holes. They […]
