All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2016. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
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Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Into the Woods…With Mom’s Cookies: Kathryn Schulz on the Problem with Thoreau
Only by elastic measures can “Walden” be regarded as nonfiction. Read charitably, it is a kind of semi-fictional extended meditation featuring a character named Henry David Thoreau. Read less charitably, it is akin to those recent best-selling memoirs whose authors turn out to have fabricated large portions of their stories. It is widely acknowledged that, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Pond Scum
Kathryn Schulz takes down Henry David Thoreau: “It is true that Thoreau was an excellent naturalist and an eloquent and prescient voice for the preservation of wild places. But ‘Walden’ is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
If the ‘Big One’ Hits Seattle
In the New Yorker, Kathyrn Schulz describes the horrific devastation that would occur if a massive earthquake hit the Pacific Northwest.
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. Manhunting in the Hindu Kush Ryan Devereaux | The Intercept | Oct. 15, 2015 | 20 minutes (5,230 words) The Intercept examines secret […]
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 Myth of the Ethical Shopper Michael Hobbes | Huffington Post | July 17, 2015 | 20 minutes (5,079 words) Why boycotting and shopping smarter won’t […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
On Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Wild’ and the Redemption Narrative
Like Dante, then, Strayed is on a spiritual journey, beginning in damnation, bound for deliverance. That makes Wild a redemption narrative — and that, in turn, helps explain its popularity, because redemption narratives are some of the oldest, most compelling, and most ubiquitous stories we have. We enshrine nature writing in the canon — you […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Talking to Cheryl Strayed About What Made ‘Wild’ Work
How did Wild become such a huge bestseller? Oprah helps, but Kathryn Schulz talks to the author about how her story—now a movie starring Reese Witherspoon—resonated with readers.
