On the eve of her marriage, an adventurous young woman tests how free she really wants to be.
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Ferrante in Fragments of Her Choosing
At The New Republic, novelist Alexander Chee has an essay/review of Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey, Ferrante’s new book of selected letters and interviews spanning nearly two-and-a-half decades.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our top stories of the week, as chosen by the editors at Longreads.
Behind the ‘Literary Brat Pack’ Label
At Harper’s Bazaar, Jason Diamond offers a look back at the “literary brat pack–Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and a group of other writers in the 1980s as famous for their coke-fueled late nights at the Odeon as they were for publishing celebrated novels before the age of thirty.
How Author Helen DeWitt Uses Language to Address the Problems In Her Life
In New York magazine, Christian Lorentzen has an interview with Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai and Lightning Rods. Owing to a combination of misfortunes, misunderstandings and publishing-related snags, the critically acclaimed novelist has been perennially broke. But, despite a history of brushes with suicide, she has a secret weapon against letting life’s problems get […]
Wallace Shawn’s Late Night
The playwright has a lot to tell viewers about human nature and our depraved era. Too bad so few people have seen his plays.
Roald Dahl at 100: A Reading List
Roald Dahl, the whimsical and wicked mind behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and other famous children’s literature, would have turned 100 on September 13, 2016. Here are seven stories about the man behind these tales.
Can a Sports-Crazed City Turn a Theater Person into a Baseball Person?
Shannon Reed thought she knew what kind of fan she was, until she moved back home to Pittsburgh.
On Becoming a Woman Who Knows Too Much
Through my education I’d become a trusted source of specialized knowledge. But how could I become the kind of leader who is surrounded with people like me?
The Selling of ‘Valley of the Dolls’
“A new book is like a new brand of detergent,” Jacqueline Susann famously said. “You have to let the public know about it. What’s wrong with that?”

