We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in political analysis.
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Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
Mourning the Low-Rent, Weirdo-Filled East Village of Old
An excerpt of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost its Soul, by Jeremiah Moss.
Posted inBooks, Story
Norma McCorvey Versus Jane Roe
In 1970, a homeless woman pregnant with her third child met with two lawyers at a pizzeria in Dallas. Did it matter, in the end, who Jane Roe really was?
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Take a Hike: Seven Stories About Heading Outdoors
Below are seven stories about the outdoors, outdoor apparel, hiking buddies, bodily transformation, body image, abuse and sufferfests.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
Snow, Death and Politics
While snowed in on the West Coast, Frances Badalamenti grapples alone with her father’s death on the other side of what feels like a dying country.
Posted inBooks, Quotes, Story
How Mary Karr Teaches Her Students About Memory: A Short Excerpt from ‘The Art of Memoir’
The celebrated memoirist uses a little deception and a judicious ‘fuck’ to make a point.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Second Chances After Fifty: Jeanette Winterson, in ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’
Today (October 2, 2015) I turn fifty. This is officially the first age that has freaked me out. Fifty? How can I be fifty? Fifty is how old grandparents are, or how old my grandparents were when I was born, anyway. And I haven’t even been a parent. Fifty is how old Maggie Estep was […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
‘The Corrosiveness of Wanting Someone to Stay Hidden’: Carrie Brownstein on Her Father’s Coming Out at 55
So here was my father, in this white apartment with textured walls and thick carpeting, and the scant amount of furniture and paintings he’d brought from Redmond, looking like interlopers, like imposters, neither here nor there. And we’re sitting in this living room and I have no idea who he is and he says, “So […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘My Depression’ Author Elizabeth Swados on Her Brother’s Mental Illness, Homelessness and Early Death
The theater and lit worlds suffered a great loss this week with the passing, Tuesday, of Elizabeth Swados, 64, a prolific writer and composer .
Posted inBooks, Quotes
Improbable Seductions: The Unsparing Eye of Mary McCarthy
For those interested in origin stories, posthumous literary gossip, and New York City in the 1930s, look no further than Mary McCarthy’s Intellectual Memoirs (1992) – a candid and lively account of McCarthy’s early writing career and the intellectual and political scenes that fueled it. McCarthy’s observations are sharp and often quite searing; she spares no […]
