The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Photo: Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for Al Jazeera America
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Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Photo: Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for Al Jazeera America
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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.
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Ned Stuckey-French | culturefront | 1999 | 21 minutes (5,289 words)
Our latest Longreads Member Pick is “Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx: A Love Story,” by Ned Stuckey-French, originally published in 1999 in culturefront, the former magazine for the New York Council for the Humanities. It’s a story that takes a closer look at the dynamics of a friendship, and the roles we play in each other’s lives.
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Alexander Woollcott fell in love with Harpo Marx the first time he saw him. It was the evening of May 19, 1924, and the Marx Brothers were making their Broadway debut in the slyly titled musical comedy I’ll Say She Is. Woollcott was there, reluctantly, to review it for the Sun. Another show, a much-hyped drama featuring a French music-hall star, had been scheduled to open the same night, but when it was postponed at the last minute, the firstline critics decided to take the night off. Except for Woollcott. His career was in the doldrums, and hoping against hope for a scoop, he dragged himself over to see what he assumed were “some damned acrobats.” Read more…
This week’s reading list by Emily includes stories from The New York TImes, n+1, and Der Spiegel.

Ah, the romance of the rails. I still bear vivid memories of my family’s post-Christmas train ride to New York City when I was an adolescent. I listened to my non-Apple mp3 player and watched, wide-eyed, the people and places passing by. Last year, I hopped commuter train after commuter train trying to bridge the unwieldy path of public transit from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. Today, my social media feeds are overrun with my writerly friends pining for a free Amtrak ticket and a quiet place to work. All aboard, indeed.
The Southwest Chief train line is a historic fixture in small-towns in New Mexico, and its absence might bring about their demise.
A reality check for the writers salivating over the possibility of Amtrak’s writer residency.
Billions of euros, year-long delays in construction — just what is going on in Stuttgart’s train station?
Why do people choose to travel cross-country via train? Meet the passengers of the Sunset Limited.
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Photo: Feliciano Guimarães
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From Monica to the D.C. Madam, some of my all-time favorite stories on politics, sex and power:
Gary Hart was frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination when rumors of an extramarital affair began to swirl. He responded to the rumors with a strong denial and a dare: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” Unfortunately for him, the Miami Herald had already been doing just that. Their intrepid reporting not only uncovered an affair between the senator and a 29 year-old model, but also rewrote the rules of political reporting.
Bonus: “Those Aren’t Rumors” (Dick Polman, Smithsonian Magazine 2008) on how the Gary Hart affair changed the political reporting game.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “D.C. Madam,” delivered high-end escorts to Beltway elite, until the whole thing came crashing down with a fiery conviction, suicide and media spectacle.
An evil dictator and a pretty blonde from Munich, whose official title was “private secretary,” and who was famously jealous of the Führer’s dog.
One of the great scandals in British political history, the Profumo Affair—which paired then War Secretary John Profumo with a teenaged former showgirl—had it all: sex, drugs, photographs, spies and a proto-Clintonian denial.
Judith Exner wasn’t just JFK’s mistress, she was also his conduit to the mob.
On Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, and what the lack of protest reveals about feminism today (or, more accurately, in 1998).
Of course Vanessa Grigoriadis would write the perfect early-aughts New York magazine piece on Monica Lewinsky’s post-scandal second act as a Manhattan twenty-something.
“My friends insist you’re John Edwards,” Rielle Hunter said. “I tell them no way—you’re way too handsome.”
Yes, that Game Change excerpt. When was the last time you re-read it?
Are we missing anything? Share your story picks in the comments.
The hype and marketing behind the “fastest man in the world”:
It’s no surprise that every sports meeting in which he participates is organized around him. When he ran in Ostrava in the spring, there were posters featuring Bolt all over the Czech city, the stadium was sold out weeks ahead and there were young blonde girls in the stands who had painted the Jamaican national colors on their cheeks.
‘Usain?’ the stadium announcer shouted.
‘Bolt!’ the crowd shouted back. And there were still three hours to go before the 100-meter race.
The other athletes were mere accessories, Olympic and world champions playing the opening act for the fastest man in the world. The journalists were interested in only two other athletes. One was Oscar Pistorius, who is running the 400-meter race on prosthetic lower legs, and the other was 800-meter runner Caster Semenya who, for a time, was rumored to be a man.
“Myths, Legends and the Making of Usain Bolt.” — Alexander Osang, Spiegel Online
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