Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
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Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
The Black Car Company That People Love to Hate: Our Member Pick
Nancy Scola | Next City, Forefront magazine | November 2013 | 26 minutes (6,561 words) Illustration by Kjell Reigstad Longreads Members support this service and receive exclusive stories from the best publishers and writers in the world. Join us to receive our latest Member Pick—it’s a new story from journalist Nancy Scola, published in Next […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
How a Great American Theatrical Family Produced the 19th Century’s Most Notorious Assassin
The celebrated tragedians of the Booth family let Shakespeare’s themes seep into their own relationships. Hubris, glory, the legacy of a dead father, brotherly rivalry, and a powerful delusion led the family—and the nation—to catastrophe.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
The Magical Stranger: A Son’s Journey Into His Father’s Life
Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
Sponsored: Free Excerpt from Paul Monette's Classic, 'Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story'
Paul Monette | Open Road Media | 1992 | 4 minutes (797 words) Below is a brief excerpt from Open Road Media’s reissue of Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, the National Book Award-winning autobiography by Paul Monette. Purchase the book here. *** Everybody else had a childhood, for one thing—where they were coaxed […]
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Longreads Guest Pick: Julie Kliegman on 'Owning The Middle'
Julie Kliegman is a senior studying journalism and Spanish at Northwestern University. Come July, she’s headed to St. Petersburg to work for PolitiFact. She loves to travel, and has lived abroad for short stints in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. “This week I enjoyed reading ‘Owning the Middle,’ an ESPN story about WNBA star Brittney Griner. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Last Song for Migrating Birds
The writer investigates the killing of migrating songbirds in the Mediterranean and why there is little being done to prevent hunters from shooting the birds for sport: “‘It’s become fashionable, and my friends talked me into it,’ the hunter explained to me, somewhat sheepishly. ‘I’m not a real hunter—you can’t become a hunter at 40. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi
Novelist Adam Johnson meets Kenji Fujimoto, a man who became the Dear Leader’s cook, confidant, and court jester: “Many people envied me because I was a favorite of Kim Jong-il. At the parties, I poured sake for Shogun-sama, but Shogun-sama also poured sake for me, which was very rare. Every time Shogun-sama said to me, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hard Knocks: Shanghai
Can American football succeed in China? “Football in America is closely associated with working-class communities, the ready-made tableau of small towns throughout the South or Midwest where collective esteem rises or falls according to how the local team did. This isn’t always how it works elsewhere. In England, for example, there remain pockets of middle-class […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Double Life of a Gay Dodger
A 1982 Inside Sports profile of Glenn Burke, one of the first professional athletes to come out. Burke died in 1995: “Burke walks out to the sunshine of the patio, where there is enough quiet to reflect. ‘People say I should still be playing,’ he says. ‘But I didn’t want to make other people uncomfortable, […]
