Following the guidance of the voices only she could hear, Joan, a peasant girl living in a world dominated by aristocrats and men, left her home to convince the dauphin—and many men along the way—that only she could save France and make him king.
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Making the Magazine: A Reading List
27 must-read stories on the making of the world’s greatest magazines.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Most Difficult Age to Be When You Work in Hollywood
“The Writer’s Guild of America has a term for my situation: They call it ‘The Gap.’ It’s the time period between when your years as a working writer end and your retirement begins. I actually have an excellent pension for when I finally retire. The Guild is a strong union and it has negotiated an […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
What Does the Book Business Look Like on the Inside?
Memories and bad math from Menaker’s life in the publishing business, excerpted from his memoir My Mistake: “We make about $3 for each hardcover sale, $1 for each paperback.” “So if we sell 10,000 hardcovers, that’s $30,000.” “Right.” “And say 10,000 paperbacks. That’s $40,000.” “Right—so the P-and-L probably won’t work. So we have to adjust […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Spend Your Income Building a Car that Must Travel 100 Miles on a Single Gallon of Gas
The first chapter from Jason Fagone‘s new book, Ingenious, about the X Prize Foundation’s $10 million competition to build a car that can travel 100 miles on a single gallon of gas. Thanks to Fagone and Crown Publishing for sharing it with the Longreads community. You can purchase the full book here.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Andrew Wylie Rules
The renowned literary agent on his hatred of Amazon, commercial fiction, and the future of book publishing: “I didn’t think that [in 2010] the publishing community had properly assessed—particularly in regard to its obligations to writers—what an equitable arrangement would look like. “And I felt that publishers had made a huge mistake, because they were […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Bigfoot, Nessie, and the Study of Hidden Animals
Emily Perper is a word-writing human working at a small publishing company. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. I spent this morning exploring The Museum of Unnatural History in Washington D.C. Fueled by the likes of Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman and Paul Simon, the museum is the storefront for 826DC, which holds workshops and […]
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Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
Memories of an Affair
Our love affair was chic from beginning to end; the rumpled intellectual and the skilled maîtresse. It was a done thing—the done thing. Beginning to end. Was it the end? She kept things lively, he thought. I counted on that. I used to look forward to work, knowing I’d see her. He pictured himself twined […]
Posted inReading List
What's in a Home? A Reading List
Emily Perper is a word-writing human working at a small publishing company. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. New York, London, Detroit, Indianapolis: What does it look like to make a home? To build a home? To live in an office building, with a Craiglist roommate, with your best friend, in a […]
