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. The Hunt for El Chapo Patrick Radden Keefe | The New Yorker | April 28, 2014 | 39 minutes (9,825 words) How the notorious […]
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The 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winners
This year’s Pulitzer Prize winners are out: The Washington Post and The Guardian shared a Pulitzer for public service for their reporting on the Edward Snowden leaks and widespread NSA surveillance, the Boston Globe was honored for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity won for his black […]
There Are Three Types of People Who Can Afford to Write Books
Several editors, agents, and authors told me that the money for serious fiction and nonfiction has eroded dramatically in recent years; advances on mid-list titles—books that are expected to sell modestly but whose quality gives them a strong chance of enduring—have declined by a quarter. These are the kinds of book that particularly benefit from […]
The Future of Reading, and What We Can Learn from Beyonce
FULL STOP: Today, we’re flooded with stories via the internet — on personal Tumblrs, Facebook and Twitter statuses, the abundance of magazines and newspapers that make their content free online. With so many narratives all around us, why do we still read (and pay for) novels? “Oh I’m fairly certain we… don’t any more. We […]
The Lobotomy Files: A Longreads Guest Pick By Nicole Greenfield
Nicole Greenfield is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. I must admit it was the photo of 90-year-old Roman Tritz, clear blue eyes and a blank stare to the camera’s side, that initially drew me into one of my favorite longreads of the week. But the photo didn’t prepare me for the truly […]
Afghanistan Undone
CBC reporter Mellissa Fung was kidnapped, stabbed, and thrown down a hole outside Kabul where she spent 28 days in captivity. Five years later, she returned to Afghanistan: “Back at home after my ordeal, I refused to let my nightmares rise out of the darkness. I took on the cause of wounded soldiers as a […]
Michael Hastings’ Dangerous Mind
On the life and death of a haunted journalist. The tragic death of Michael Hastings also gave birth to a number of conspiracy theories: “Hastings never identified himself in his writing as someone suffering from PTSD. The closest he came to such an admission was in May, when he retweeted an article about using pot […]
‘Why Did You Shoot Me? I Was Reading a Book’
An excerpt from Radley Balko’s new book Rise of the Warrior Cop, on the militarization of U.S. police forces and the reasons SWAT teams have been able to conduct raids for seemingly minor alleged crimes: “In 2007 a Dallas SWAT team actually raided a Veterans of Foreign Wars outpost for hosting charity poker games. Players […]
In the Crosshairs
The story of Chris Kyle, a decorated sniper who wrote a best-selling memoir about his life as a SEAL. Kyle’s attempt to help a troubled veteran ended in tragedy: “After Routh arrived at the Dallas V.A., Jodi and Jen visited him in the evenings. A week later, he did not seem much better. He was […]
Honor Betrayed
A two-part series on sexual abuse and homelessness among female veterans in the U.S.: “In response to the growing outcry over sexual violence, the Pentagon last year ordered that charging decisions in sexual assault cases be determined by more senior commanders than in the past, but the directive stopped short of taking the decision out […]

