Writing for The Believer in February, 2014, Michael Schulman explored one of the most dramatic and memorable failures in American branding: Coca-Cola’s OK Soda. Marketed to Gen X’ers in 1994, the OK Soda brand died by 1995, though its artifacts live on in collector circles and advertising lore.
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Posted inEditor's Pick, First Chapters, Nonfiction
Mourning the Low-Rent, Weirdo-Filled East Village of Old
An excerpt of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost its Soul, by Jeremiah Moss.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2016: Food Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in food writing.
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
The Real Obama: An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer David J. Garrow
The author offers insights into the 44th President of the United States after interviewing over 1,000 people for Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Trick to It All: A Conversation with Photographer Henry Leutwyler
Henry Leutwyler on portraiture and the magic of inanimate objects.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
On Beauty: A Reading List About Makeup
Beauty criticism analyzes the ways we can subvert a society that would have us subsumed by self-loathing. We use the tools we’ve been given. Makeup, then, can be a weapon. And it can be damn fun.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Burger King Generates Buzz on a Budget
Burger King likes being edgy, Schwan says, and it has proved that it doesn’t mind doing things that might make other brands blush. In August, as the company pushed a new spicy version of its chicken fries—a cult favorite the chain returned to the menu after a flood of social media requests—it tweeted a picture […]
Posted inArts & Culture, History, Story
Percy Ross Wants to Give You Money!
He was was a self-made, blue-collar millionaire in Reagan’s America. But when Percy Ross decided to give away his fortune, he made things simple: all you had to do was ask for it.
Posted inBooks, Business & Tech, Nonfiction
A Sociology of the Smartphone
Smartphones have altered the texture of everyday life, digesting many longstanding spaces and rituals, and transforming others beyond recognition.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Thank You, Jon Gnagy: An Appreciation of a Predecessor to Bob Ross
Ned Stuckey-French reflects on the host of Learn to Draw, the “middlebrow” instructional art show he loved as a kid.
