In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston gave Langston Hughes a lift to Tuskegee in her Nash coupe, nicknamed “Sassy Susie.” It was one of most fortuitous hangouts in literary history.
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
What We Eat When We’re Eating at Christmastime: A Reading List
It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.” “A Christmas Memory,” Truman Capote ’Tis the season! A time for awkwardly posed […]
Posted inBlog Post, Books, Fiction, Nonfiction
Colson Whitehead: An Appreciation
Black Cardigan is a great newsletter by writer-editor Carrie Frye, who shares dispatches from her reading life. We’re thrilled to share some of them on Longreads. Go here to sign up for her latest updates. * * * I was skipping around Google the other day and was reminded of a piece by Colson Whitehead called “How To Write.” You may […]
Posted inBooks, History, Science & Nature, Story, Unapologetic Women
A British Seaweed Scientist Is Revered in Japan as ‘The Mother of the Sea’
Kathleen Drew-Baker died never having set foot in Japan, and never knowing what an impact her research would make. Plus, how to build a lazy bed, how to cook Irish blancmange, and other surprising seaweed stories.
Posted inBooks, Story
A Crocodile In Paris: The Queer Classics of Qiu Miaojin
As the first woman in Chinese literature to come out as openly gay, Qiu Miaojin adopted and humanized the bestial expectations of a cruel public.
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Storytelling the Flood: Elizabeth Rush on Empathy and Climate Change
In her new book, Elizabeth Rush gives voice to poor communities and communities of color who are the first victims of the rising sea.
Posted inBooks, Editor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, First Chapters, Nonfiction
A New Yorker, and a Sick Person
In an excerpt from her memoir, Porochista Khakpour recalls fashioning herself after her artist aunt’s example.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
A New Yorker, and a Sick Person
In an excerpt from her memoir, Porochista Khakpour recalls fashioning herself after her artist aunt’s example.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story, Unapologetic Women
Exodus in the Ozarks
At a theater in Branson, Missouri, Pam Mandel finds an unexpected plot twist in a very familiar story.
Posted inBooks, Current Events, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
Where Have You Hidden the Cholera?
In Mozambique and around the world — and throughout history — cholera outbreaks have caused riots. Why? And what does it have to do with bicycles?
