Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Happens When Ronan Farrow Interviews Miley Cyrus
Beyond music, Cyrus is expanding her interests. After her breakup, she tells me, she asked Diane Martel, the director responsible for Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop” and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” videos, to “just completely, like, drown me in new movies and books and art. I lived in Nashville, where that shit isn’t accessible.” We flip […]
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
The Magical Stranger: A Son’s Journey Into His Father’s Life
Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
Posted inEditor's Pick
I Packed My Knives & Went: Aboard the Top Chef Cruise
The author on his experience aboard the “Top Chef Cruise” and seeing former “chef’testants”: “There were also live Quickfires. There were two of these a night, and they were always packed to the gills. Audience volunteers joined chefs onstage for challenges familiar to anyone that’s watched the show. The MC was shaky, and the whole […]
Posted inUncategorized
Reading List: Fashion Week
Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. It’s Fashion Week at Longreads. From street sense to the ethics of cool, fashion is a fitting follow-up to last week’s “Believe in Your Selfie.” 1. “Girls on the Street.” (Katie Haegele, Utne Reader, September 2013) Forget Fashion […]
Posted inUncategorized
Reading List: Fashion Week
Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. It’s Fashion Week at Longreads. From street sense to the ethics of cool, fashion is a fitting follow-up to last week’s “Believe in Your Selfie.” 1. “Girls on the Street.” (Katie Haegele, Utne Reader, September 2013) Forget Fashion […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Pilot’s Son, Flying Solo
An excerpt from the new book The Magical Stranger. Rodrick was 12 when his pilot father died in a plane crash: “A colleague once nicknamed me – half mocking – the ‘magical stranger’ because I get people to tell me things. But to me, the magical stranger has always been my father. He was brilliant […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Stowaway to the Thanatosphere: My Voyage Beyond Apollo with Norman Mailer
In 1972, two men sneaked onto a cruise ship in order to warn Norman Mailer about a plot for the rich to inhabit the moon: “‘They’ve cleverly organized this thing on a ship, you dig, that way no one can crash it,’ mused Forcade. He theorized that the cruise was just a cover for an […]
Posted inFeature, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact
David Foster Wallace saw clear lines between journalists and novelists who write nonfiction, and he wrestled throughout his career with whether a different set of rules applied to the latter category.
Posted inUncategorized
A look behind-the-scenes at the alleged 2004 search by the Church of Scientology for the next Mrs. Tom Cruise: Nazanin Boniadi, 25, who had not yet become the human-rights activist for Amnesty International and the actor she is today, was summoned in October 2004 to meet an important church official at the Celebrity Centre International, […]
