The writer, after discovering a large mound of fire ants in his backyard, heads out to learn how the “ants from hell” invaded the American South: “The range of Solenopsis invicta covers a vast wetland in southern Brazil and Paraguay known as the Pantanal. Sometime in the early 1930s the ants stowed away in coffee […]
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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 inBooks, First Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction
Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
“There were a million heavenly things to see and a million spectacular ways to die.”
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The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side: Our Longreads Member Pick
Mark Oppenheimer | The Atlantic Books | November 2013 | 88 minutes (22,700 words) Longreads Members not only support this service, but they receive exclusive ebooks from the best writers and publishers in the world. Our latest Member Pick, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side, is a new story by Mark Oppenheimer and The Atlantic Books, […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
What It's Like to Outrun Death: The Survival Story of a New Orleans Blues Legend
Barry Yeoman | The New New South, Creatavist | December 2013 | 52 minutes (13,100 words) For our latest Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to feature “The Gutbucket King,” a new ebook by journalist Barry Yeoman and The New New South, about the tumultuous life of blues singer Little Freddie King, who survived stabbings, alcoholism and personal tragedy. […]
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The Bones of Marianna, by David Kushner
This week’s Longreads Member Pick is by David Kushner, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone whose work has been featured on Longreads often in the past. He has just published The Bones of Marianna, a new story from The Atavist, and we’re thrilled to give the ebook to Longreads Members. Kushner explains: Almost everyone who hears the shocking story […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?
The U.S. Postal Service is losing $25 million per day—but its leadership is not giving up: “The investment in the shipping and trucking and sorting infrastructure has already been made, so they’re exploring whether there are ways to get more value from it. Postal carriers already deliver one million packages of drugs and contact lenses […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Bookstore Strikes Back
Author Ann Patchett on opening an independent bookstore in Nashville, Tenn. at a time when brick and mortar bookstores are considered dead: “I was starting to understand the role that the interviews would play in that success. In my 30s, I had paid my rent by writing for fashion magazines. I found Elle to be […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Cosmo, the Hacker ‘God’ Who Fell to Earth
An in-person encounter with a hacker named Cosmo, who has infiltrated accounts on Amazon, Apple, AOL, PayPal, and AT&T. In real life he’s a 15-year-old high school dropout: “Cosmo explained exactly how it is done. “‘You have to add a bank account. You can make a virtual bank account on eTrade.com with info from FakeNameGenerator.com.’ […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
A writer loses everything on his iPhone, his iPad and his Mac—including all of the photos from the first year and a half of his daughter’s life—after a hacker infiltrates his Amazon, Apple, Gmail and Twitter accounts: “Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn’t have had to worry about […]
