“How foolish they are to try to make something.” Here’s the classic 1981 BBC interview highlighting the work of theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” You can also read Feynman’s book of the same name. For further reading and viewing on Feynman: 1. The ‘Dramatic Picture’ of Richard Feynman (Freeman Dyson, […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
5 Great Stories on the Lives of Poets
“If I knew where poems came from, I’d go there.”
Posted inUncategorized
“I did have an interesting (unattributable, of course) briefing from someone very senior in one West Coast mega-corporation who conceded that neither he nor the CEO of his company had security clearance to know what arrangements his own organization had reached with the US government. ‘So, it’s like a company within a company?’ I asked. […]
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What One Woman Discovered About Health Care in the Early 20th Century
“Until then, the Health Department had sought to track down sick children and refer them to physicians, a mostly futile endeavor in the days before antibiotics and modern medicine. Baker decided that the new bureau’s mission would instead be prevention. The city had an established and efficient system of birth registration. As soon as a […]
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'The Power of a Name': Maya Lin on Making the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
“I made a conscious decision not to do any specific research on the Vietnam War and the political turmoil surrounding it. I felt that the politics had eclipsed the veterans, their service, and their lives. I wanted to create a memorial that everyone would be able to respond to, regardless of whether one thought our […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Conversation: Robert Silvers
The founding editor of the New York Review of Books looks back on 50 years: Danner: “I’m holding here the first issue, which declares, in a statement on the second page: ‘This issue … does not pretend to cover all the books of the season or even all the important ones. Neither time nor space, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
But Never a Lovely So Real
On the life and career of writer Nelson Algren, one of the most prolific—yet underappreciated—writers of the last century: “For my money, no book more elegantly describes the world of men and women whom the boom years were designed to pass by. In the decades after Golden Arm, the country obsessed over the behaviors and […]
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Longreads Member Exclusive: A Visit to Havana
(Subscribe to Longreads to receive this and other weekly exclusives.) This week, we’re proud to feature a Member Exclusive from Alma Guillermoprieto and The New York Review of Books. Born in Mexico City, Guillermoprieto has covered Latin America for NYRB since 1994, and she has also written for The New Yorker, The Guardian and the Washington Post. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Love on the March
A brief history of the LGBT movement: “I am forty-four years old, and I have lived through a startling transformation in the status of gay men and women in the United States. Around the time I was born, homosexual acts were illegal in every state but Illinois. Lesbians and gays were barred from serving in […]
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
Yes, All Women: A Reading List of Stories Written By Women
This week, a lot happened. A misogynist went on a violent rampage. #YesAllWomen took off on Twitter. Dr. Maya Angelou, feminist author and all-around genius (and don’t get me started on her doctor honorary), died at 86 years old. This week, I present a long list of essays, articles and interviews written by women. Many […]
