In his debut, Saad Hossain brings a much-needed cynicism to our literature of the Iraq War. An absurdist protest novel in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Escape from Baghdad! relentlessly focuses the reader’s attention on the folly of war.
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Posted inNonfiction, Story
Curses: A Tribute to Losing Teams and Easy Scapegoats
Barry Grass | The Normal School | Spring 2014 | 18 minutes (4,537 words) 1st Late in every February, Major League Baseball players report to Spring Training. Every year in Kansas City this is heralded by a gigantic special section in The Kansas City Star crammed full of positive reporting and hopeful predictions about the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. The Truth About Chicago’s Crime Rates David Bernstein, Noah Isackson | Chicago Magazine | April 7, 2014 | 27 minutes (6,980 words) The city’s […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Climate Change and the Language of Mourning
There is the scientific and ideological language for what is happening to the weather, but there are hardly any intimate words. Is that surprising? People in mourning tend to use euphemism; likewise the guilty and ashamed. The most melancholy of all the euphemisms: “The new normal.” “It’s the new normal,” I think, as a beloved […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Hosting the Olympics Makes No Economic Sense
Before the 1990s hosting was usually a low-key affair. Los Angeles was the only bidder for the 1984 Olympics. It funded its games almost entirely with private money, as largely did Atlanta in 1996. Most football World Cups were played in scarcely renovated older stadiums. But globalisation and new television channels showing sport changed that. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Excerpt From the Book the NFL Doesn’t Want You to Read
An excerpt adapted from League of Denial, about the National Football League’s long denial about the connection between football and brain damage: “Nine months later came yet another NFL study in Neurosurgery. This one dealt with repeat concussions. Numerous previous studies had shown that one concussion left the brain vulnerable to another concussion if the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
#Nightshift: Excerpts from an Instagram Essay
Jeff Sharlet | Longreads | September 2014 | 12 minutes (2,802 words) 1. Snapshots Dunkin Donuts, West Lebanon, New Hampshire The night shift, for me, is a luxury, the freedom to indulge my insomnia by writing at a Dunkin Donuts, one of the only places up here open at midnight. But lately my insomnia doesn’t […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Whitest Historically Black College In America
How Bluefield State, a historically black college, became a school where 90 percent of the students are now white: “In 1966, the state picked Wendell G. Hardway to lead the college — the school’s first white president. Deirdre Guyton, who runs the college’s alumni affairs department, said that Hardway was the first president to live […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Athletes Get Great
How much of greatness is nature vs. nurture? Sports Illustrated writer David Epstein challenges Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours” rule in a new book about the science of training, The Sports Gene. A lot depends on individual biology, and there are cultural factors, too: “Usain Bolt is a great example. He was 6’4” when he was […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
The Believer Interview: Ice Cube
Linda Saetre | The Believer | 2004 | 26 minutes (6,574 words) The below interview is excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews. Thanks to The Believer for sharing this with the Longreads community. * * * ‘Music Is a Mirror of What […]
