A visit to Illinois—home to snow, slaughterhouse romance, and a fraught geology masquerading as pizza—courtesy of Matthew Gavin Frank’s brilliant new book.
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Inside the Advertising Industry: A Reading List
From fashion bloggers to food “fluffers,” it takes a village to make you want to buy stuff. Why do some brands connect with us, while others take us by surprise or make us angry? Here are six stories examining the advertising industry.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the NFL Is Like a Blockbuster Movie Franchise
The industry term for or a blockbuster movie franchise is a “tentpole”—it’s the asset that holds the whole operation up. At the height of mass culture, in the second half of the 20th century, it was enough to be on television to command an audience in the tens of millions. But as channels multiplied, the difference between […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Jerry Football
He’s one of the most infamous owners in professional sports, in need of one more Super Bowl. The complete story of Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys.
Posted inReading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
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. A Diagnosis Jenny Diski | London Review of Books | Sept. 1, 2014 | 16 minutes (4,133 words) words) “I’m a writer. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Peyton Manning Learned from His Older Brother Cooper
But it was Manning’s older brother Cooper who put his neck injury in the proper context and cured him of any self-pity. Cooper had been an athlete equal to anyone in the family, an all-state wide receiver with a scholarship to Ole Miss, when he began experiencing numbness and atrophy in his right bicep. The […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When Richard Sherman Met Pete Carroll
I was a high school junior when I first met him. I got pulled out of class unexpectedly to see him waiting in the hallway—Pete Carroll, national championship-winning head coach. We stood and talked there by the lockers for a few minutes. I’ll never forget that—USC’s head coach coming to recruit me at Dominguez High […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2014: Sports Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in sports writing.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Never Forgetting a Face
Joseph Atick, a pioneer of facial-recognition systems, is now cautioning against their unfettered use: In 2001, his worst-case scenario materialized. A competitor supplied the Tampa police with a face-recognition system; officers covertly deployed it on fans attending Super Bowl XXXV. The police scanned tens of thousands of fans without their awareness, identifying a handful of […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
First to the Ball
Willie Wood and the Making of the Modern Game: Michael Lewis on America’s first Super Bowl The game itself lives only in memory: no filmed record exists of the first Super Bowl. It was broadcast on two networks but both of them lost or erased the program. All that remains are the few highlights culled […]
