“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
first chapters
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Story
My Unsentimental Education
“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
First Chapter: Dave Eggers’ Novel, ‘Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?’
“We know each other, Kev. From way back. And I didn’t want to bring you here like this.”
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters
'Friendship': The Full First Chapter from Emily Gould's New Novel
Emily Gould | Friendship | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | July 2014 | 8 minutes (1,893 words) Below is the opening chapter of Friendship, the new novel by Emily Gould, who we’ve featured often on Longreads in the past. Thanks to Gould and FSG for sharing it with the Longreads community. You can purchase the full book from […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
'Friendship': The Full First Chapter from Emily Gould's New Novel
Emily Gould | Friendship | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | July 2014 | 8 minutes (1,893 words) Below is the opening chapter of Friendship, the new novel by Emily Gould, who we’ve featured often on Longreads in the past. Thanks to Gould and FSG for sharing it with the Longreads community. You can purchase the full book from […]
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
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
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 inFirst Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction
‘I’m One of the Others Now’: What Life Was Like for a Family in East Germany
“What had driven us apart? What was so important that it had turned us into strangers, even today?”
Posted inFirst Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
‘I’m One of the Others Now’: What Life Was Like for a Family in East Germany
“What had driven us apart? What was so important that it had turned us into strangers, even today?”
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction
‘There Is Nothing New in Wall Street’: A Stock Trader’s Life in the 1920s
Edwin Lefèvre | Reminiscences of a Stock Operator | 1923 Our latest Longreads First Chapter comes recommended by Michelle Legro: Long before the “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort made his first million or snorted his first line of cocaine, turn-of-the-century trader Jesse Livermore, the “Great Bear of Wall Street,” accumulated over $100 million short-selling stocks before the […]