Search Results for: Review

College Longreads Pick: ‘The Media Diet’ by Stephanie Maris, Ryerson University

Longreads Pick

Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. This week’s pick comes from Stephanie Maris, who wrote this story for Ryerson University’s Ryerson Review of Journalism.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 30, 2013

Reading List: One in Seven Billion

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Emily Perper is word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

The student journalist, the Afghani mother, the elderly custodian, the Chinese orphan boy: each of these pieces forces the reader to stop and consider the extraordinary stories of seemingly ordinary people.

1. “At 99, A St. Petersburg Man Finds Meaning in the Working Life.” (Lane DeGregory, Tampa Bay Times, July 2013)

Feature writing wizard DeGregory has found an incredible subject: the wonderful Mr. Newton, who has worked for over 84 years and hasn’t stopped yet.

2. “‘See You on the Other Side.’” (Sara Morrison, Columbia Journalism Review, May 2013)

Jessica Lum, photojournalist, understood the empathetic necessity of storytelling. She practiced her art until she died of cancer at age 25.

3. “Matthew.” (Andrew Yellis, May 2013)

“We met when I was 15 and he was 7. Matthew was always ‘my little brother in China’ … But how can I pretend to really know what it was like to grow up in the situation he did?” Yellis tries to raise a troubled Chinese teen at his parents’ orphanage.

4. “The View from the Sitting Room.” (Angie Chuang, Vela Magazine, July 2013)

Delving into the daily lives of Afghani women, Chuang meets Amina, whose steadfastness saw her family through war, changing regimes and the disappearance of her youngest brother at the hands of KGB soldiers.

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Photo by Andrew Yellis

Reading List: One in Seven Billion

Longreads Pick

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter who blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. This week’s picks include stories from the The Tampa Bay Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Andrew Yellis, and Vela Magazine.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 28, 2013

5 Great Stories on the Lives of Poets

Sylvia Plath. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

“If I knew where poems came from, I’d go there.” —Michael Longley

Below are some of my favorite #longreads that fall under the umbrella of “the lives of the poets.” Each is paired with a favorite poem by the poet in question. Quite a few of these stories are personal, not just about the poet, but about the authors of the pieces themselves. Which is unsurprising, especially because, as Billy Collins put it in a 2001 Globe and Mail piece: “You don’t read poetry to find out about the poet, you read poetry to find out about yourself.”

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1. ‘River of Berman,’ by Thomas Beller (Tablet Magazine, Dec. 13, 2012)

David Berman is perhaps best known for his work with the indie-rock band Silver Jews, but his poetry is a thing to behold, as accessible as it is awesome (in the true sense of the word). Beller’s piece, a “tribute to the free-associating genius of the Silver Jews,” delves not just into the beauty of Berman’s free-association, but also his Judaism, his place in the New York literary scene of the 1990s, and his public pain.

Poem: “Self Portrait at 28” by David Berman

2. ‘The Long Goodbye,’ by Ben Ehrenreich (Poetry Magazine, Jan. 2008)

The details of poet Frank Stanford’s life are as labyrinth-like as his most famous work, an epic poem titled, “The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You.” His life was in many ways a series of contradictions: his childhood was divided between the privilege of an upper-crust Memphis family and summers deep in the Mississippi Delta; he was a backwoods outsider who maintained correspondence with poets ranging from Thomas Lux to Allen Ginsberg; and posthumously, he is both little-known and a cult figure in American letters. In seeking to unravel the man behind the myth, Ehrenreich heads deep into the lost roads of Arkansas: the result is a haunting and vivid portrait of both Stanford’s life and his own quest.

Poem: “The Truth” by Frank Stanford

3. ‘Zen Master: Gary Snyder and the Art of Life,’ by Dana Goodyear (New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2008)

Dana Goodyear’s profile of Gary Snyder provides a rich rendering of the Beat poet, Buddhist, and California mountain man.

Poem: “Night Song of the Los Angeles Basin” by Gary Snyder

4. ‘On Sylvia Plath,’ by Elizabeth Hardwick (New York Review of Books, Aug. 12, 1971)

It is likely that if you have made it this far down the list you already know a fair amount about Sylvia Plath, but what makes this piece interesting is Elizabeth Hardwick’s take on her, and her lovely, clear-eyed prose. Hardwick, who co-founded the New York Review of Books, was herself no stranger to the lives of poets, having spent 23 years married to Robert Lowell. It is also—maybe—of interest that the same girls who fall mercilessly hard for Plath at 16 and 21 and often discover Hardwick with a similar fervor a few years down the road (myself included).

Poem: “Cut” by Sylvia Plath

5. ‘Robert Lowell’s Lightness,’ by Diantha Parker (Poetry Magazine, Nov. 2010)

Widely considered one of the most important 20th century American poets, Lowell’s biographer called him “the poet-historian of our time.” Parker’s piece examines a much more personal history, that of Lowell’s relationship with her father, painter Frank Parker.

Poem: “History” by Robert Lowell

Inside The Detroit Bus Company

The city of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy, but there’s some good news from residents like Andy Didorosi, who responded to the death of the city’s light-rail plans by building his own private bus service, The Detroit Bus Company.

Dark Rye, which devoted its June issue to Detroit, took a closer look inside Didorosi’s company for this mini-doc.

More Detroit reading and viewing, including story picks from the Longreads archive:

1. What Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones? (Charlie LeDuff, Mother Jones, 2010)

2. Detroitism: What Does ‘Ruin Porn’ Tell Us About the Motor City? (John Patrick Leary, Guernica, 2011)

3. Letter from Detroit (Ingrid Norton, Los Angeles Review of Books 2012)

4. Demolishing Detroit (In Order to Save It) (Howie Kahn with photos by Tim Hetherington, GQ, 2011)

5. Go Ahead, Take a Bath. It’s the Detroit Police (Charlie LeDuff, YouTube, 6 min.)

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Video Pick: The Detroit Bus Company

Longreads Pick

A mini-documentary on one resident who took matters into his own hands after the city killed its light-rail plans. Plus: Detroit stories from the Longreads archive, from Mother Jones, GQ, Los Angeles Review of Books and Guernica.

Author: Editors
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 18, 2013

Playlist: Richard Feynman and 'The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out'

“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, New York Review of Books, 2011)

“He never showed the slightest resentment when I published some of his ideas before he did. He told me that he avoided disputes about priority in science by following a simple rule: ‘Always give the bastards more credit than they deserve.’ I have followed this rule myself. I find it remarkably effective for avoiding quarrels and making friends. A generous sharing of credit is the quickest way to build a healthy scientific community.”

2. Los Alamos From Below: Reminiscences 1943-1945

Feynman on his work on the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb: “So I want you to just imagine this young graduate student that hasn’t got his degree yet but is working on his thesis, and I’ll start by saying how I got into the project, and then what happened to me.”

3. Ode to a Flower (Fraser Davidson, Vimeo, 1 min)

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Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever Created

Longreads Pick

In the early 1990s, magician duo Penn & Teller decided to create “Desert Bus,” a satirical video game for the Sega CD game console that required players to spend hours driving a bus through Arizona and Nevada:

“Penn, Teller, and the game’s publisher, Absolute Entertainment, planned a lavish prize for any player that scored a hundred points, a feat that would require eight hundred continuous hours of play: a real-life trip from Tucson to Las Vegas on a desert bus carrying showgirls and a live band.

“‘But by the time the game was finished, the format was dead,’ said Teller. ‘We were unable to find anybody interested in acquiring the game.’ Imagineering went out of business, and Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors was never released. The only record of the game’s existence was a handful of review copies that had been sent out to journalists in the weeks before the publisher went bust, in 1995.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 9, 2013
Length: 6 minutes (1,561 words)

18 Deep Interviews with Great Writers

"Frost/Nixon" — Imagine/Working Title Films

Kevin Smokler is the author of Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven’t Touched Since High School, an essay collection on the year he spent rereading 50 canonical texts from high school English class as a 39-year-old adult.

Out of everything shared in the #Longreads community, I particularly love the interviews. I even created my own hashtag (#deepinterviews) and you can find my most recent picks here.

And when it comes to authors, a great interview can completely reframe a book that you’ve read a thousand times, or give you the onramp into an writer’s work you haven’t yet experienced. Below are five of my favorite sources and recent discoveries for outstanding author interviews:

1. The Paris Review

Favorites: Take your pick. I’m particularly fond of authors you know are great talkers (Dorothy Parker, James Ellroy), who don’t show up much in MFA programs (William Gibson, Maya Angelou) and those who work in more than one genre (Joan Didion, Lillian Hellman).

2. The Millions

Favorites: Adam Mansbach, Michelle Orange and Katherine Boo.

3. AV Club

Favorites: Terry Pratchett, TV Critic Alan SepinwallJonathan Franzen.

4. eMusic Q&A

I’ve been an eMusic subscriber for years and had no idea they trafficked in audiobooks. That is until I ran across a very fine Q&A with short story writer Elissa Schappell. The audiobook of Schappell’s collection “Building Blueprints for Better Girls” was the excuse to talk with her not only about her work but the music that inspired it.

Other favorites: Eddie Huang, George Saunders, Greil Marcus, Ernie Cline.

5. Book Riot

Favorites: “Their 15 Minutiae” (with Emma Straub here) in which writers are asked about everything EXCEPT books and writing. Conceived and executed by bookseller Liberty Hardy, it’s a brilliant example of how an interview with an author should reveal the author as an interesting person who writes books not someone interesting because they write books.

Addendum: Ms. Hardy is also the creator of Paperback to the Future, a Netflix/Personal Shopper for Books kind of program. Which means she is crazy busy these days and “Their 15 Minutiae” is on temporary hold. We understand why but still say “come back soon.”

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Share your favorite interviews in the comments.

Reading List: Wread About Writing

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Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

Salinger’s life is being made into a movie. Someone said writers work best with only one kid. Print journalism is, apparently, still the domain of white men. It’s been an unfortunate week. Here are four pieces to help you refocus on craft and life and journey.

1. “I Did Not Vanish: On Writing.” (Cynthia Cruz, The Rumpus, June 2013)

A tender dream of an essay on writing, risk and choosing life.

2. “Writing About Writers.” (Bob Thompson, The American Scholar, 2009)

In this delightful essay, book reviewer Bob Thompson discusses his interview secret—the “Didion Rule.”

3. “An Interview with Poet Rebecca Lindenberg.” (Elizabeth Clark Wessel, Bomblog, February 2013)

Lindenberg is the poet behind the crucial “Love: An Index,” written after the disappearance of her partner, the poet Craig Arnold. Here, she discusses her experimentation with form, her influences and how she sees her work changing. Parts of this interview are poetry themselves.

4. “To Write About the Button.” (Rachel Aviv, Poetry Foundation, March 2008)

“[Grace Paley] was just the opposite of a Romantic poet … It didn’t interest her to be a poet with a capital P. She was an absolutely ordinary person, and she was proud of it.”

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Photo: Joshua Burnett