On the rise and fall of American utopia.
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10 Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2016
Below is a guest post from Mumbai-based writer-filmmaker—and longtime #longreads contributor—Pravesh Bhardwaj (@AuteurPravesh).
Longreads Best of 2015: Under-Recognized Stories
Stories that deserved more attention in 2015.
10 Short Stories I Loved in 2014
Below is a guest post from Pravesh Bhardwaj, a filmmaker based in Mumbai who has been posting his favorite short stories all year.
Sci-Fi Is for Everyone: Six Stories About Marginalized Groups in Science Fiction
Genre literature has power. Mainstream science fiction, historically, has a representation problem. (Why are there no black people in the future? Or, better yet, why is there only one black person in the future?! Did LGBTQ people disappear, too?) Where does that leave us?
Five Stories About the Way We Sleep
Here are five pieces on different facets of sleep: a short story about sleepwalking, a dispatch from Gaza, a person who can’t help but sleep when he’s stressed, and more.
ROKIT, MOTOWN and NIMOY: How Aviation Waypoints Get Their Names
Then there is the intriguing way airways are navigated, using radio beacons and “waypoints”, spots defined by geographic co-ordinates or their bearing and distance from a beacon. These waypoints are typically given five-letter capitalised names that are supposed to be simple enough for any controller or pilot to recognise them, regardless of their first language. […]
Postwar New York: The Supreme Metropolis of the Present
Forty labor strikes on one day, French existentialists on the loose, and a 50-foot G.I. blowing enormous puffs of REAL smoke.
‘The World Is Full of Obvious Things’: A Sherlock Holmes Reading List
Sherlock Holmes feels uncannily contemporary these days — from his dizzying array of post-hipsterish quirks (Cocaine user! Virtuosic violin player! Exotic tobacco aficionado!) to a social aloofness that feels straight out of a Millennial INTP‘s playbook. (His knack for Twitter-ready aphorisms doesn’t hurt, either.) I’ve been rereading Conan Doyle’s stories for almost 20 years, and the guy has never felt more fresh.
Losing My Religion: A Reading List
In the two years since my graduation from my conservative Christian college, approximately half of my friends have reaffirmed their faith: they’ve joined churches, volunteered in youth groups, and read the Bible in its entirety. Other friends have left their faith for something different: agnosticism or atheism. I find myself between the two camps, mostly intrigued by the latter. This is explored in the following four pieces.
