An interview with ‘Game of Thrones’ author George R.R. Martin: You’ve talked before about the original glimpse of the story you had for what became A Song of Ice and Fire: a spontaneous vision in your mind of a boy witnessing a beheading, then finding direwolves in the snow. That’s an interesting genesis. It was […]
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The Box and the Basement
“On the last day of my old job, I stumbled out the door, holding aloft that iconic emblem of termination: The Box. Though from the outside it might look wholly indistinct, we who have felt its symbolic weight know this is no ordinary box; this is a box that can make grown men cry.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Photo: doug88888, Flickr Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant? Wells Tower | GQ | June 4, 2014 | 32 minutes (8,196 words) […]
'The Most Stoned Kids on the Most Stoned Campus on Earth'
Above photo: Not Moppy and Molly *** What exactly did 4/20 look like on a college campus a decade ago? In 2004’s “The Fully Baked Adventures of Moppy and Molly,” published in Rolling Stone (pdf), Vanessa Grigoriadis profiled a young couple celebrating at UC Santa Cruz: The first 4:20 for Molly and Moppy came at 4:20 A.M.—they […]
The Secret Nazi Attempt to Breed the Perfect Horse
The bestselling author of ‘The Eighty Dollar Champion’ describes the Nazis’ secret stud farm, where dubious visionaries imagined a breed of perfect (and perfectly white) horse.
Longreads Best of 2014: Here Are All of Our No. 1 Story Picks from This Year
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2014. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email. If you like these, you can sign up to receive our free weekly email every Friday. * * * I Smoked Pot with […]
The Secret Nazi Attempt to Breed the Perfect Horse
The bestselling author of ‘The Eighty Dollar Champion’ describes the Nazis’ secret stud farm, where dubious visionaries imagined a breed of perfect (and perfectly white) horse.
Come Hear My Song
A night at the San Joaquin Valley’s last historic honky-tonk.
All Together Now
The Spice Girls were the biggest, brashest girlie group ever to have hit the British mainstream. Kathy Acker was an avant-garde American writer and academic. They met up in 1997 to swap notes—on boys, girls, politics. They are here to rehearse for an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Not only is this their first live […]

