“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically [as it] becomes apparent [that] most people have nothing to say to each other. … By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s…. Ten years from now the phrase information economy will […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
The Decline of Book Reviewing
Hardwick’s classic 1959 essay on the dismal state of book criticism. (Robert Silvers has pointed it out as an early inspiration for founding the New York Review of Books.) For the world of books, for readers and writers, the torpor of the New York Times Book Review is more affecting. There come to mind all […]
Posted inNonfiction
The Last Freeway
The true story of L.A.’s freeways, and a judge who changed everything.
Posted inEvents, Nonfiction
Coming Oct. 29, NYC: A Night of Storytelling with This Land Press
Longreads & WordPress.com present
A special night of storytelling with
This Land
Featuring:
Mark Singer (The New Yorker)
Rilla Askew (Author, “Fire in Beulah”)
Ginger Strand (Author, “Inventing Niagara”)
Kiera Feldman (Writer, “Grace in Broken Arrow,” “This Is My Beloved Son”)
Marcos Barbery (Journalist and Documentarian, Writer, “From One Fire”)
Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10012
Posted inBooks, Fiction
Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Prep,’ 10 Years Later
Sittenfeld’s smart debut novel about social dynamics at an exclusive boarding school remains relevant—and not just as a “coming of age novel”—a decade after it was first published.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Story
Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Prep,’ 10 Years Later
Sittenfeld’s smart debut novel about social dynamics at an exclusive boarding school remains relevant—and not just as a “coming of age novel”—a decade after it was first published.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lust in the Golden Years
“Still, I decided, age alone was no basis for rejection. That’s exactly the basis on which I have been rejected many times. The bank, given my age, refused my request for a loan when, in my first year of renting, I found a small house I wanted to buy. The loan I could get—based on […]
Posted inUncategorized
“I did have an interesting (unattributable, of course) briefing from someone very senior in one West Coast mega-corporation who conceded that neither he nor the CEO of his company had security clearance to know what arrangements his own organization had reached with the US government. ‘So, it’s like a company within a company?’ I asked. […]
Posted inUncategorized
What One Woman Discovered About Health Care in the Early 20th Century
“Until then, the Health Department had sought to track down sick children and refer them to physicians, a mostly futile endeavor in the days before antibiotics and modern medicine. Baker decided that the new bureau’s mission would instead be prevention. The city had an established and efficient system of birth registration. As soon as a […]
Posted inUncategorized
'The Power of a Name': Maya Lin on Making the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
“I made a conscious decision not to do any specific research on the Vietnam War and the political turmoil surrounding it. I felt that the politics had eclipsed the veterans, their service, and their lives. I wanted to create a memorial that everyone would be able to respond to, regardless of whether one thought our […]
