What makes a secret society? Is it the codes and the handshakes, the physical language?
interview
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Doughnuts, Witches and Start-Ups: Five Stories About Secret Subcultures
What makes a secret society? Is it the codes and the handshakes, the physical language?
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Aristocratic Chef: An Interview with Daniel Le Bailly de La Falaise
Daniel Le Bailly de La Falaise on private caterings for celebrities, the sexuality of a peach, and how the simplicity of food is the ultimate luxury.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
Chuck Klosterman on the Success of Taylor Swift, and the Word ‘Calculating’
If you don’t take Swift seriously, you don’t take contemporary music seriously. With the (arguable) exceptions of Kanye West and Beyoncé Knowles, she is the most significant pop artist of the modern age. The scale of her commercial supremacy defies parallel—she’s sold 1 million albums in a week three times, during an era when most […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Thelonious Monk on the Moment He Became Aware of the Police
During the 1960s and 70s, legendary jazz drummer Art Taylor interviewed his fellow musicians. The interviews are collected in the 1993 book Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, and it’s one of jazz’s greatest. The familial, casual conversations are also serious and insightful, full of history, portraiture, and revelations about race relations in America, and the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Jeffrey Eugenides Imagines His Favorite Writers Together at a Dinner Party
The waiter arrives. When he asks about food allergies, Kafka hands him a written list. Then he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. As soon as he’s gone, Kundera says, “The problem with Kafka is that he never got enough tail.” We all snicker. Joyce orders another bottle of wine. Finally, he turns and looks at me through his dark glasses. “I’m reading your new book,” he says. “Oh?” I say. “Yes,” says Joyce.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Twisted History of Your Favorite Board Game
An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
The Twisted History of Your Favorite Board Game
An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Art of Authenticity: A Conversation with PostSecret’s Frank Warren
“I feel like PostSecret is almost like an anti-Facebook. It’s the true story that you would normally never share in a public arena.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Gabriel García Márquez on the Solitude of Writers and Dictators
What Márquez told Peter H. Stone in a 1981 interview with The Paris Review.