Sittenfeld’s smart debut novel about social dynamics at an exclusive boarding school remains relevant—and not just as a “coming of age novel”—a decade after it was first published.
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Interview with a Torturer
Documentary filmmaker and Khmer Rouge survivor Rithy Panh spent hundreds of hours interviewing Duch, the commandant of the Cambodia “killing fields” and one of the most notorious torturers of the 20th century. This is his haunting memoir of those interviews.
How a Great American Theatrical Family Produced the 19th Century’s Most Notorious Assassin
The celebrated tragedians of the Booth family let Shakespeare’s themes seep into their own relationships. Hubris, glory, the legacy of a dead father, brotherly rivalry, and a powerful delusion led the family—and the nation—to catastrophe.
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
Ursula K. Le Guin On ‘Starting Late’ as a Writer
LE GUIN: My mother had always wanted to write. She told me this only after she’d started writing. She waited until she got the kids out of the house, until she was free of responsibility for anybody except her husband. Very typical of her generation. She was in her fifties when she started writing—for kids, […]
Maya Angelou on the Joys of Being Edited
When I finish maybe fifty pages and read them—fifty acceptable pages—it’s not too bad. I’ve had the same editor since 1967. Many times he has said to me over the years or asked me, Why would you use a semicolon instead of a colon? And many times over the years I have said to him […]
A Longreads Guest Pick: Sari Botton on ‘Not Weird About Brooklyn’
Sari is a writer and editor living in Rosendale, N.Y. She writes the Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me column on The Rumpus. An anthology she edited for Seal Press, Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, will be released Oct. 8. “My favorite longread this week is ‘Not Weird About […]
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
Maya Angelou: 1928-2014
Angelou, in 1990, on the moment she decided to write.
articles read & loved no. 53
dietcoker: KMA Sullivan writes about well-intentioned people perpetuating misogyny: “Women Are Bitches.” I’ve got mixed feelings about Murakami’s assessment of his The Great Gatsby translation and its reception in Japan. The Paris Review recommends fiction: “Bettering Myself” by Ottessa Moshfegh The Meaning of White – albinism and a mother’s love Emily Perper!
