A strange real-life murder inspires a new film starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. How does the victim’s real family feel about being the subject of a black comedy? “I was living in Los Angeles when Aunt Marge was murdered in 1996 and hadn’t been to Carthage, where I was born, in quite a few […]
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The Bohemians: The San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature
Ben Tarnoff | The Bohemians, Penguin Press | March 2014 | 46 minutes (11,380 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) For our Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to share the opening chapter of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature, the book by Ben Tarnoff, published by The Penguin Press.
Longreads Best of 2012: Emily M. Keeler
Emily M. Keeler is a writer and the founding editor of Little Brother Magazine. Best Pair of Essays on Loneliness Emily Cooke, “The Lonely Ones” – The New Inquiry Susan Sontag is a force that continues to be reckoned with, and the publication of her second volume of journals this year occasioned this incredible piece. […]
Playlist: 5 Podcast Episodes on the History of Hip-Hop
Gabrielle Gantz (@contextual_life) is the blogger behind The Contextual Life, a frequent longreader, and a fan of podcasts. 1. How Hip-Hop Works (Stuff You Should Know, 52:13) In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Chuck and Josh discuss the history of hip-hop, from The Sugar Hill Gang to the present. They add their own […]
The Bohemians: The San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature
Ben Tarnoff | The Bohemians, Penguin Press | March 2014 | 46 minutes (11,380 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) For our Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to share the opening chapter of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature, the book by Ben Tarnoff, published by The Penguin Press.
Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Here are our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also save them as a Readlist. 1. Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet Amanda Hess | Pacific Standard | January 6, 2014 | 28 minutes (7,188 words) Women who are harassed online through social media sites like Twitter and in […]
Longreads Best of 2013: Here Are All 49 of Our No. 1 Story Picks From This Year
Every single story that was chosen as No. 1 this year.
A recent college graduate, she was jailed briefly for trying to skip out on her dinner tab in Malibu, then freed in the middle of the night in a neighborhood far from home. She had no car, no ride, no phone, and no money. When she disappeared, it raised a flurry of questions about how […]
And so began the improbable last chapter in the fall of a major newspaper, as chronicled by O’Shea in The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers. Among other things, the book is a reminder that whenever you think things can’t get worse, they can. They can get much, much […]
Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, 5280 Magazine, New York Magazine, The Awl, plus a guest pick from technologist and writer Matt Langer.

