Andrew O’Hagan, in the London Review of Books, recounts the disastrous experience of trying to ghostwrite the autobiography of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (The publisher later released an unauthorized early draft of the book): I wrote through the night to assemble what we had. The thinness could become a kind of statement, I asserted; it […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
The Murderer and the Manuscript
Alaric hunt is writing detective novels, while serving a life sentence for murder, arson, robbery and other charges: Alaric Hunt turned 44 in September. He last saw the outside world at 19. He works every day at the prison library in a maximum-security facility in Bishopville, S.C., passing out the same five magazines and newspapers […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014
In 1964, science fiction author and biochemistry professor Isaac Asimov envisioned what life would be like in 2014: Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare “automeals,” heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
Reading List: Leaving the Places We've Lived
Emily Perper is a word-writing human working at a small publishing company. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. Everyone is writing about leaving New York, it seems. But Isaac Fitzgerald just arrived in NYC, and some of the writers in the delightful anthology Goodbye To All That have returned. Of course, there […]
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Holy Junk Heap
Some 300,000 Jewish documents were hidden in a closet in Cairo for hundreds of years. They were discovered by the lady adventurer twins Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson and the legendary Rabbinical scholar Solomon Schechter. Here is their story.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
This Is Living
How burdens and values pass from fathers to sons, and the search for that one true thing.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Longreads Best of 2013: Open Thread
We’re kicking off the Longreads Best of 2013 series tomorrow—and we want your help. In the comments below, share links to your favorite nonfiction and fiction stories, or your favorite books, writers and publishers of the year. We’ll keep this thread open all through December.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Interview: Simon Rich on Guilt, Humor Writing, and Being the Worst Person Ever
“I’m certainly as revolting and privileged and narcissistic as any of the hipsters described in my book, if not more so. I mean, there’s nobody worse than me.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Your Inner Drone: The Politics of the Automated Future
“As we grow more reliant on applications and algorithms, we become less capable of acting without their aid.”
