Tag: the believer

Examining the body, disability, and the damaging idea of objective beauty.

This week, we’re sharing stories from Sarah Weinman, Stephen Rodrick, Bianca Giaever, James Ross Gardner, and Megan Pugh.

To protect them from climate change, concerned citizens are moving clones of California’s ancient sequoias to Oregon in a process known as assisted migration, but should they?

This week, we’re sharing stories from Russell Shorto, Casey Newton, T Kira Madden, Molly Jong Fast, and Jenny Price.

The sprawling Los Angeles Metropolitan Area is the best place in America to reassess the way we write and think about the natural world.

Inside music journalism post-2008 recession, and how media consumption in the 21st century offers a road map for the continuation of the once-robust medium.

Sometimes, the only way to vent your rage so you can be a useful member of society is with an axe.

This week, we’re sharing stories from C.J. Chivers, David Ewing Duncan, Steve Silberman, Anna Wiener, and David Marchese.

Six stories about running and the human drive to push through pain.

After his high school friend drowns, a young academic’s mind leads him down a dark path of conspiratorial explanations.

Violent tensions have existed between Haiti’s Vodouisants and missionary Christians for centuries.

This week, we’re sharing stories from Ronan Farrow, Diana Nyad, Rachel Monroe, Ross Andersen, and Teresa Mathew.

Do we carry pieces of our younger selves with us, even as we grow and change?

These stories will give you an idea of the strength and skill that goes into creating engaging literary journalism.

Writing for The Believer in February, 2014, Michael Schulman explored one of the most dramatic and memorable failures in American branding: Coca-Cola’s OK Soda. Marketed to Gen X’ers in 1994, the OK Soda brand died by 1995, though its artifacts live on in collector circles and advertising lore.

“I was sixteen, the age Jeanne would always be.”

The sensitivity of male egos, the demands of motherhood, and the general disdain for female ambition made loneliness the likely lot of the chick singer. For the young, female rock-and-roll fan, the arm of a male musician might have seemed more welcoming. Girlfriends and wives appeared as fairy-tale heroines who held royal sway in the […]

Early this summer I attended a disappointing writing workshop where a clearly unprepared instructor stressed the importance of creating air-tight sentences without bothering to suggest how. “Interrogate each one of your sentences,” she kept saying, then referring, over and over, to the first five lines of Lolita. While the overall experience was unsatisfying, it reminded me […]

The Top 5 Longreads of the week.

Veteran status cuts both ways. Because I’m an army veteran, other vets often tell me things they wouldn’t tell those who haven’t served. It is a privilege to be given this confidence, and yet I’m filled with an overwhelming obligation to get their stories right. Although I’m a longtime reporter, writing about veterans has been […]

The author talks with The Believer about how real experiences make their way into books.

Linda Saetre | The Believer | 2004 | 26 minutes (6,574 words)   The below interview is excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews. Thanks to The Believer for sharing this with the Longreads community. * * * ‘Music Is a Mirror of […]

A central agony in these books is alienation—not only the pain of abuse, or heartbreak, or evaporation, but the pain of having your pain appropriated. The books themselves reclaim the hurt for their authors, and whatever their literary merit, they offer at least some catharsis for the reader, who can always relate. Rock songs make […]

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. * * *

BLVR: I’ve heard you guys had a no-analyzing rule for a while. You wouldn’t talk to each other about how the show went. TA: That was for about a year. You come offstage and no one can say anything. At all. At all. Because everyone’s got their own perspective. BLVR: Someone might think it’s a […]

“Our conversation turns to the movie Shrek. Nahal loves Shrek so much that she’s seen the first installment of the DreamWorks trilogy ‘at least thirty-six or thirty-seven times.’ Her obsession is, apparently, shared by many Iranians. The image of Shrek appears everywhere throughout Tehran: painted on the walls of DVD and electronics shops, featured in […]

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, The Believer has just published a handful of classic stories for the first time on the web, and they were nice enough to share them with the Longreads community. Enjoy:  Eddie Vedder Interviewed by Carrie Brownstein (June 2004) “Crimes Against the Reader” (Rick Moody, April 2005) “Transmissions from Camp Trans” (Michelle Tea, […]

Much of Hawaii’s history has been lost or whitewashed for tourists, including the story of Eddie Aikau, a Hawaiian lifeguard and surf legend who was proud of his native cultural identity, and taught others about Hawaii’s true history of Western exploitation: The beach had been a refuge for Eddie, but, like many Hawaiians during the […]

[May 2005] How Steve Martin transitioned from comedy to writing, and how celebrity affected his day-to-day life: SM: You know, there’s a moment when you’re famous when it’s unbearable to go out because you’re too famous. And then there’s a moment when you’re famous just right. [Laughs] And then there’s kind of a respect or […]

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