The author talks with The Believer about how real experiences make their way into books.
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
What Ails Us: A Reading List About Disease
In last week’s Reading List, I wrote about Eula Biss and her new book, On Immunity: An Inoculation. It is a meditation on the United States, disease, race and motherhood, using vaccination as a metaphor/catalyst. With that on my mind, this week’s list is about diseases—four essays about Ebola, Parkinson’s and more. 1. “My Mother, Parkinson’s and […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Ray Bradbury on Science Fiction and the Art of What’s Possible
“Science fiction is the fiction of ideas.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Two-Thirds of Publishing Is About Failure’
My boss when I worked in London—someone who’d published Booker Prize winners, remember—used to say that two-thirds of publishing is about failure. I agree with that: it’s the nature of the business. And yet publishing is an industry that keeps attracting to it, in various ways, people who want it to be two-thirds about success. […]
Posted inReading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
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. * * *
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Joan Rivers: 1933-2014
Joan Rivers, comedy legend, has died at age 81. Three stories from the Longreads Archive: The Fresh Air Interview: Joan Rivers (Terry Gross, NPR) GROSS: So, like, that’s kind of a paradox to me that you live to be on stage and at the same time, there’s this dread of being on stage. Ms. RIVERS: […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Genius and Mystery of Willie Nelson
Unlike fellow giants like Williams, Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton, who have plenty of obvious imitators, no one sounds like Nelson. He’s an uncanny vocal phraser: “The three masters of rubato in our age are Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Willie Nelson,” said the late producer Jerry Wexler. “The art of gliding over the meter […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘The Library Is One of the Few Civic Spaces We Have Left’
I have a dear friend who’s working at the library in Chattanooga, which is one of the rare states where the budget is increasing, and she’s doing all of this neat stuff with technology: bringing in 3-D printers, teaching web-use skills, all of these public services that are really necessary beyond making books available for […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘The Muse Only Shows Up When You Put Your Ass in the Chair’
In my twenties I realized that the muse is a bum. The muse only shows up when you bait her by putting your ass in the chair. She can only be lured to your side by the sound of pounding keys, the smell of paper and ink. At some point (I imagine it was when […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Virginia’s Unregulated Day Care Industry
Of the 43 deaths in unregulated homes, The Post’s review found that 22 were sleep-related, 10 involved physical abuse, three were accidental and one was natural. In seven cases, the causes were unclear in the available records. All but one of the sleep-related deaths involved risky actions taken by caretakers, records show. These included leaving […]