An intimate recollection of a Beat legend.
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Posted inNonfiction
A Birth Story
Meaghan O’Connell had a perfect pregnancy and the perfect birth plan—and then she went into labor.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last, Disposable Action Hero
Hollywood studios are increasingly focusing on creating expensive action movies with less costly unknown actors. For some of these unknowns, it’s a chance to skyrocket into fame, but it’s not that easy: Hollywood has gotten creative in its hunt for the next big action star. Producers have considered scouting high-school football games. Brett Norensberg, an […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
A Birth Story
Meaghan O’Connell had a perfect pregnancy and the perfect birth plan—and then she went into labor.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Good Health Care Depends on Nurses
Arnold Relman, a physician with more than six decades of experience, broke his neck and discovered what it’s like to be critically ill and cared for under today’s health care system.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
The Magical Stranger: A Son’s Journey Into His Father’s Life
Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Kidnapping Case: Seizure and Recovery
Solomon [Northup], the subject of the following narrative, is a free colored citizen of the United States; was born in Essex County, New York, about the year 1808; became early a resident of Washington County, and married there in 1829. His father and mother resided in the county of Washington about fifty years, till their […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
David Cronenberg on Transformation
Stories of magical transformations have always been part of humanity’s narrative canon. They articulate that universal sense of empathy for all life forms that we feel; they express that desire for transcendence that every religion also expresses; they prompt us to wonder if transformation into another living creature would be a proof of the possibility […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
What Does It Mean to Have a ‘Good Death’?
A neurologist helps watch over her patient as she dies at home, and wonders: Do we ever not die alone? In twenty-first century America, there is no such “how to” manual on dying. Nor does our state-of-the-art modern medicine offer much help. Fact: Seven out of ten Americans wish to die at home, die the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Dirty Medicine
The inside story of Ranbaxy, a generic drug maker that committed criminal fraud by fabricating data to win FDA approvals: “Thakur knew the drugs weren’t good. They had high impurities, degraded easily, and would be useless at best in hot, humid conditions. They would be taken by the world’s poorest patients in sub-Saharan Africa, who […]
