Every generation has that one unforgettable death that bears the question, “Where were you when ____ died?” For baby boomers, it was JFK. For the cool music-minded baby boomers, it was John Lennon. And, for Generation Xers, like myself, it was Kurt Cobain. Like generations past, you never forget where you were when a cultural […]
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Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Tennessee Williams on His Women, His Writer’s Block, and Whether It All Mattered
Tennessee Williams tasked James Grissom with seeking out each of the women (and few men) who had inspired his work—Maureen Stapleton, Lillian Gish, Marlon Brando and others—so that he could ask them a question: had Tennessee Williams, or his work, ever mattered?
Posted inNonfiction, Story
When Mary Martin Was the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up
In the 1950s, a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin became a sensation, attracting the fourth biggest audience of all time for a scripted TV show when a live production was broadcast on NBC.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Where the Spirit Meets the Bone: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams, with Benjamin Hedin | Radio Silence | March 2014 | 11 minutes (2,690 words) Radio SilenceFor this week’s Longreads Member Pick, we are thrilled to share a first-time-ever memoir by the great Lucinda Williams from Radio Silence, a San Francisco-based magazine of literature and rock & roll. Subscribe, and download the free iOS […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Believer Interview: Ice Cube
Linda Saetre | The Believer | 2004 | 26 minutes (6,574 words) The below interview is excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews. Thanks to The Believer for sharing this with the Longreads community. * * * ‘Music Is a Mirror of What […]
Posted inReading List
A Kurt Cobain Reading List in Reverse Chronological Order
Every generation has that one unforgettable death that bears the question, “Where were you when ____ died?” For baby boomers, it was JFK. For the cool music-minded baby boomers, it was John Lennon. And, for Generation Xers, like myself, it was Kurt Cobain. Like generations past, you never forget where you were when a cultural […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Innovation That Helped 'El Chapo' Create a Multi-Billion-Dollar Drug Trafficking Empire
But Chapo’s greatest contribution to the evolving tradecraft of drug trafficking was one of those innovations that seem so logical in hindsight it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before: a tunnel. In the late 1980s, Chapo hired an architect to design an underground passageway from Mexico to the United States. What appeared to be […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Most Difficult Age to Be When You Work in Hollywood
“The Writer’s Guild of America has a term for my situation: They call it ‘The Gap.’ It’s the time period between when your years as a working writer end and your retirement begins. I actually have an excellent pension for when I finally retire. The Guild is a strong union and it has negotiated an […]
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How filmmaker David Ayer’s early years in South Central Los Angeles has given him a distinct understanding of the LAPD: ‘I was feral,’ he recalls, ‘uncontrollable, did my own thing. Brushes with the law and all that stuff.’ He punctuates this with a gruff laugh. ‘It was a disaster.’ Most everyone who knew Ayer was […]
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week—featuring The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Los Angeles Magazine, Smithsonian, fiction from The American Scholar and a guest pick from Marissa Evans.
