Tag: harper’s

It took eight years to write the story of Richardson Bay’s boat community, known as the anchor-outs.

Living off the grid isn’t just for landlubbers.

What the history of folktales reveals about the role storytelling played in human evolution.

The hope and future of the United States is bound to Alabama’s.

Katie Roiphe’s moment is over.

Arizona’s struggling public schools offer a glimpse of what America’s public schools might look like under Betsy DeVos’ national voucher program.

This week, we’re sharing stories from Bee Wilson, Seyward Darby, Wil S. Hylton, Greg Milner, and Annie Dillard.

“Wipeouts, showmanship, incredible feats of talent.” Nope, not surfing or football — this is the world of competitive spelling.

In Harper’s, Yascha Mounk examines how recent Islamic immigration challenges many Germans’ core idea of their national identity.

In the following five pieces, you’ll meet foragers, hikers, researchers, anthropologists, drug dealers and puppies.

Fresh from a go-nowhere relationship, Gemma Sieff writes an engrossing personal essay in Harper’s about her passing encounters with a series of men she met on Tinder.

Our favorite stories of the week, featuring Harper’s, St. Louis Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Fusion.

The Harper’s digital archive is a small and unsung national treasure, at least as far as I’m concerned; I’ve spent countless hours sifting through old issues, scanning for early work from familiar names and tracking down forgotten gems from authors whose bylines have largely faded. One such writer is Margot Hentoff, whose short story “Where Do […]

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * *

Looking for grace in a desert brothel.

How the system failed an obsession.

[William] Powell quit his job and began writing for up to ten hours a day. Despite the title, there is nothing about anarchism as a political theory in the book, which focuses on drugs, surveillance, weapons, and explosives. About drugs, Powell knew plenty. He had overcome a speed habit, smoked lots of pot, consumed his […]

This week, I’m sharing four stories about snakes and the people who love, hate, and tolerate them in equal measure.

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * *

What the “protesters” had come up against was the Active Denial System, a weapon, we were told, that “could change the rules of war and save huge numbers of lives in Iraq.” Active denial works like a giant, open-air microwave oven, using a beam of electromagnetic radiation to heat the skin of its targets to […]

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * *

Here’s the first official edition of Longreads’ Best of WordPress! We’ve scoured 22% of the internet to create a reading list of great storytelling — from publishers you already know and love, to some that you may be discovering for the first time. We’ll be doing more of these reading lists in the weeks and months to […]

In Harper’s, John P. Davidson discusses his time at The Starkey Institute, a “butler boot camp” which certifies estate managers to work for the super-rich (the story is currently only available to magazine subscribers).

“Americans continue to shake their heads over new revelations of widespread data mining and near-universal phone tapping, while Unamericans righteously defend these tactics and call for punishment of the leakers who revealed them. Were I to be shown in accurate detail why it was necessary for me to be kept under surveillance, possibly for the […]

“It was 1991. We’d just been diagnosed as Generation X, and certainly we had all the symptons, our designs and life plans as scrawny and undeveloped as our bodies. Sure, we had dreams. Dan had escaped college with a degree in visual arts, was a cartoonist en route to becoming an animator. Darren was an […]

This week’s Longreads Member pick is “Contest of Words,” Ben Lerner‘s October 2012 essay from Harper’s Magazine. Lerner is author of the award-winning 2011 novel Leaving the Atocha Station and three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw and Mean Free Path. The story comes recommended by Matt O’Rourke, a longtime Longreads community member and creative director for Wieden and Kennedy in […]

“Monopoly Is Theft.” — Christopher Ketcham, Harper’s Magazine More by Ketcham

The demolition of the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago was supposed to open up new opportunities for low-income families. But the community has disappeared: The fifteen-story high-rise was known by its address, 1230 N. Burling. Already stripped of every window, door, appliance, and cabinet, the monolith was like a giant dresser without drawers. The teeth tore […]

[National Magazine Awards finalist, Public Interest] An investigation of rampant sexual violence that goes unpunished at a Sioux reservation: Kim reported the rape, and Mike was arrested and jailed. As soon as she returned to the reservation, his family began threatening her, calling her a liar and a bitch. Whenever they saw her on the […]