All reporters have pieces that stay with them, stories whose characters and components linger long after the last revisions have been rendered and the paper put to bed. For Jennifer Mendelsohn, Sean Bryant was that character. Mendelsohn first encountered Sean Bryant shortly after his death, nearly two decades ago. Transfixed by his short, vivid life and subsequent suicide, […]
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Posted inTop 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. Wrong Answer Rachel Aviv | The New Yorker | July 14, 2014 | 35 minutes (8,962 words) words) Facing increased pressure to […]
Posted inCollege, Nonfiction
The Last Night in the Shelter – Our College Pick
What gets published is rarely what got pitched. Sources bail, circumstances shift, conflicts fizzle. Reporting out stories that go nowhere is a frustrating, tedious business – unless, of course, they turn into something good. Such was Wyatt Stayner’s experience in putting together a story called “Getting Out of Poverty in Oregon,” this week’s College Longreads […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Feel Of Nothing: A Life In America’s Batting Cages
Steve Salerno | Missouri Review | Winter 2004| 24 minutes (6,016 words) Steve Salerno’s essays and memoirs have appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, Esquire and many other publications. His 2005 book, SHAM, was a groundbreaking deconstruction of the self-help movement, and he is working on a similar book about medicine. He teaches globalization and […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
How to Write About Tax Havens and the Super-Rich: An Interview with Nicholas Shaxson
Last year Shaxson published a Vanity Fair article, “A Tale of Two Londons,” that described the residents of one of London’s most exclusive addresses—One Hyde Park—and the accounting acrobatics they had performed to get there.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Death of a Salesman
On the genius of Cal Worthington, the legendary Southern California car dealer and TV pitchman who died Sept. 8 at age 92: “Worthington’s long-running series of self-produced spots never deviated from a formula. The slender cowboy—six foot four in beaver-skin Stetsons and a custom Nudie suit—always preceded his hyperactive sales pitch with a gambol through […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Doug Band Drove a Wedge Through the Clinton Dynasty
How the world of politics works. MacGillis tells the story of Doug Band, who rose up to become one of President Clinton’s most trusted advisers, until his own business interests got in the way: “Of course, it was only natural that Band would tap his existing network. What is striking is the extent to which […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last Days of Big Law: You Can’t Imagine the Terror When the Money Dries Up
The story that will make you reconsider law school. Scheiber goes deep inside a big Chicago law firm, Mayer Brown, to examine the problems plaguing the legal profession—including consolidation, cost-cutting, layoffs, infighting, and further degradation of quality of life: “Bob Helman realized the firm would go under if his partners sat around waiting for business […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hollywood Coming To Dixon? Executive’s Financial Troubles Raise Questions
A 10-week investigation into Carissa Carpenter, a self-described entertainment executive who has proposed building a $2.8 billion movie studio in a small farming town in Northern California: “So who is Carissa Carpenter? “Those who have encountered the California native – in City Council chambers and in the courts – have widely divergent views, with descriptions […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Argument with Myself
On the man known as ‘H.M.’, whose brain was caught in “permanent present tense” and whose story is documented in a new book by neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin: “Memory creates our identity, but it also exposes the illusion of a coherent self: a memory is not a thing but an act that alters and rearranges even […]
