How Disney CEO Robert Iger engineered the deal, and whether George Lucas can really retire: “Iger understood Lucas’s concerns. ‘George said to me once that when he dies, it’s going to say “Star Wars creator George Lucas,” ’ he says. Still, Iger wanted to make sure that Lucas, who was used to controlling every aspect of […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Cinema Tarantino: The Making of Pulp Fiction
How Quentin Tarantino created the film that launched his career and redefined movies in the 1990s: “Just seven years earlier, in 1986, Tarantino was a 23-year-old part-time actor and high-school dropout, broke, without an apartment of his own, showering rarely. With no agent, he sent out scripts that never got past low-level readers. ‘Too vile, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Conversation: Steven Soderbergh
The director on what’s wrong with Hollywood today, why you should never use his name in a pitch, and why he’s retiring from movies to focus on painting: “The worst development in filmmaking—particularly in the last five years—is how badly directors are treated. It’s become absolutely horrible the way the people with the money decide […]
Posted inFiction, Reading List
Reading List: 6 Stories for the Science-Fiction Newbie
Hilary Armstrong is a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She also happens to love science fiction, so she put together a #longreads list for sci-fi newbies. * * * Have you heard? Science fiction is “in”—nerds at the movies, nerds everywhere. This is thrilling if you are familiar with the […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters
First Chapters: ‘You Are One of Them,’ by Elliott Holt
Elliott Holt | The Penguin Press | 2013 | 12 minutes (2,854 words) Our latest First Chapter is from Elliott Holt’s novel, You Are One of Them. Thanks to Holt and The Penguin Press for sharing it with the Longreads community. * * * Prologue In Moscow I was always cold. I suppose that’s what Russia […]
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2013: Here Are All 49 of Our No. 1 Story Picks From This Year
Every single story that was chosen as No. 1 this year.
Posted inUncategorized
Article of the Week: Making art
Article of the Week: Making art thearticleoftheweek: If you’ve been reading this blog (and thank you!), you may have noticed there are some topics I like more than others, and probably my number one favorite is arts and culture – the making of it, the digesting of it, the effects of it. Movies, tv, music, […]
Posted inFiction, Reading List
Reading List: 6 Stories for the Science-Fiction Newbie
Hilary Armstrong is a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She also happens to love science fiction, so she put together a #longreads list for sci-fi newbies. * * * Have you heard? Science fiction is “in”—nerds at the movies, nerds everywhere. This is thrilling if you are familiar with the […]
Posted inUncategorized
College Longreads Pick of the Week: 'Light from Darkness,' by Mary Kenney, Indiana University
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher is helping Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: Recent Indiana University journalism student Mary Kenney used her study-abroad experience in India to test her abilities as a foreign correspondent. In “Light From Darkness,” Kenney profiles a sex worker named Akshaya. Akshaya was a […]
Posted inUncategorized
Playlist: 5 Podcast Episodes on the History of Hip-Hop
Gabrielle Gantz (@contextual_life) is the blogger behind The Contextual Life, a frequent longreader, and a fan of podcasts. 1. How Hip-Hop Works (Stuff You Should Know, 52:13) In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Chuck and Josh discuss the history of hip-hop, from The Sugar Hill Gang to the present. They add their own […]
