“Memoir is a total minefield, as you know. It’s best if you write the book and leave the country.”
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A Diagnosis
“I’m a writer. I’ve got cancer. Am I going to write about it? How am I not?”
Q. Sakamaki and the Art of the Socio-Photo-Documentary
“Here, I see many barriers, many conflicts—between class, between race, between cultures, between ideologies, between jobs.”
The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
On an abandoned mining site in Scotland, an architectural theorist attempts to bring the mysteries of the cosmos to life on Earth.
A San Francisco Story
Princess Anastasia was homeless, and lived and died in the Castro. Two different families piece together a life.
The Awful Emotional and Financial Toll of Dementia
Lost too often in the discussion about a cure has been a much more basic, more immediate, and in many ways more important question: How can we better care for those who suffer from the disease? Dementia comes with staggering economic consequences, but it’s not the drugs or medical interventions that have the biggest price […]
Longreads Best of 2014: Here Are All of Our No. 1 Story Picks from This Year
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2014. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email. If you like these, you can sign up to receive our free weekly email every Friday. * * * I Smoked Pot with […]
Science, Chance, and Emotion with Real Cosima
Through her work on clone-thriller Orphan Black, science consultant Cosima Herter has helped open our eyes to the possibilities and perils of synthetic biology and the pursuit of genetic perfection.
The Perils of Writing About Your Own Family: A Conversation with George Hodgman
“Memoir is a total minefield, as you know. It’s best if you write the book and leave the country.”
What Ails Us: A Reading List About Disease
In last week’s Reading List, I wrote about Eula Biss and her new book, On Immunity: An Inoculation. It is a meditation on the United States, disease, race and motherhood, using vaccination as a metaphor/catalyst. With that on my mind, this week’s list is about diseases—four essays about Ebola, Parkinson’s and more. 1. “My Mother, Parkinson’s and […]

