In a recent issue of Maclean’s, Anne Kingston tackled the sociology—and potent symbolism—of those cartoon stick figure decals you see affixed to the back windows of SUVs the world over. “Few trends,” she argues, “reveal shifting family values in a mobile, personal-branding-obsessed society as do family stick figures.” From the piece: Between those extremes, a create-your-own-stick-family narrative […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Wild Country: Remembering Edward Abbey
The author and environmental activist Edward Abbey, who passed away in 1989, would have been 88 today. Abbey—who Larry McMurtry dubbed “the Thoreau of the American West”—was known for his searing love of wilderness, particularly the deserts of the Southwest, and his progressive views. An excerpt from Desert Solitaire, his most famous non-fiction work, can be […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Theorizing the Drone
What does the rise of the drone mean for justice, for the ethics of heroism, for psychology? Most important of all, who is dying and why?
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Theorizing the Drone
What does the rise of the drone mean for justice, for the ethics of heroism, for psychology? Most important of all, who is dying and why?
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Prophet
A profile of personal finance guru Dave Ramsey, who has six million listeners tune into his radio program and countless others who rely on him for tips about handling money. But Ramsey’s tips can only help people get so far: Often it’s even more basic expenses that create the undertow. “The structural stuff swamps them […]
Posted inUncategorized
College Longreads Pick: 'Nothing Was the Same: On Drake and the White Boy Imaginary' by Sam Rosen, Brown University
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: The critical essay challenges all writers, especially young ones. Some of their essays are better endured than read, the intellectual version of middle school poetry. Writers begin to build their critical vocabulary from the lecture halls […]
Posted inFeature
A Brief History of Class and Waste in India
“This is the man who transformed teenage rebellion into a toilet revolution.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Open Letter to Wikipedia
A mistake on a Wikipedia entry for one of his novels leads an author to set the record straight: “My novel ‘The Human Stain’ was described in the entry as ‘allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard.’ (The precise language has since been altered by Wikipedia’s collaborative editing, but this falsity still […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
On the Far Side of the Fire: Life, Death and Witchcraft in the Niger Delta
Jessica Wilbanks | Ninth Letter | Fall/Winter 2013 | 27 minutes (6,860 words) Download as a .mobi ebook (Kindle) Download as an .epub ebook (iBooks) One of our previous Longreads Member Picks, an essay by Jessica Wilbanks, is now free for everyone. “On The Far Side of the Fire” first appeared in Ninth Letter and was awarded the journal’s annual creative nonfiction award. This is […]
Posted inUncategorized
A mistake on a Wikipedia entry for one of his novels leads an author to set the record straight: My novel ‘The Human Stain’ was described in the entry as ‘allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard.’ (The precise language has since been altered by Wikipedia’s collaborative editing, but this falsity still […]
