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, Reading List
David Carr: 1956-2015
David Carr, the acclaimed journalist, media columnist for The New York Times, and author of the bestselling Night of the Gun, died February 2015 in New York at the age of 58. Here is a brief reading list of stories by and about Carr, his life and work. It doesn’t even begin to cover it. […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
All the Language in the World Won’t Make a Bookshelf Exist
After leaving a drag-and-click job at a newspaper to learn carpentry, Nina MacLaughlin takes on her first big solo project: building bookshelves for her father.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Stories From Writers From the National Book Festival: A Reading List
Surrounded by thousands of people at the Washington Convention Center buying books from the Politics & Prose pavilion, taking pictures with Clifford, moving downstairs to sneak into a panel by Dav Pilkey or Louisa Lim or Cokie Roberts, and waiting in line to meet their literary heroes, I felt like I could levitate. I thought: These are […]
Posted inFirst Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction
Jesus Land
“They don’t know the first thing about us; they just hate us because we’re black.”
Posted inFirst Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Jesus Land
“They don’t know the first thing about us; they just hate us because we’re black.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Franklin, Reconsidered: An Essay by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore revisits the legacy of Benjamin Franklin, who in his time was “the most accomplished and famous American who had ever lived.”
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Interview: Former ‘Matilda’ Star Mara Wilson on Leaving Hollywood and Becoming a Writer
“It’s very hard to be a perfectionist growing up in the film world. It reinforces all of your worst fears about perfection and doing things right.”
Posted inReading List
Romance, Relationships and Religion: A Reading List
1. “Breaking Up is Hard to Do – Especially in the Orthodox World.” (Jewcy, Rachel Delia Benaim, July 2014) I recently finished reading Cut Me Loose, Leah Vincent’s memoir of her time in the ultra-Orthodox community, her subsequent shunning and eventual breakout. Benaim, the author of this piece comes from a Modern Orthodox background, but many of the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
On the Other Hand
Twenty-five years after Jim Henson’s death, a glimpse of the man who kept his most iconic puppet singing: Steve Whitmire.
