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. * * *
The New York Times
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Heirs, Heiresses and Inheriting a Company
America is not kind to the heir. He is a stereotypical figure in our literature, and not an appealing one at that. He tends to be depicted as weak, pampered, flawed, a diluted strain of the hardy founding stock. America celebrates the self-made. Unless an heir veers sharply from his father’s path, he is not […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Perfect Essay, Kafka’s Abyss, and My Mother
The relationship between writer and teacher is no simple thing. For John Kaag, a former professor of expository writing at Harvard, the most vital component of this relationship is intimacy. Despite the persistent image of the writer as solitary figure, Kang sees companionship–specifically critical companionship–as essential. For many writers, the search for a truly compatible teacher–the Gordon […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
It's Never Too Late, Vol. 1
Continuing to brave the Indian Ocean, and continuing to die, only illustrates their desperation in a new, disturbing kind of light. This is the subtext to the plight of every refugee: Whatever hardship he endures, he endures because it beats the hardship he escaped. Every story of exile implies the sadder story of a homeland. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Confronting the Top Brass at The New York Times About Pay Discrepancy
Jill Abramson left the New York Times’s executive editor position today and was replaced by Dean Baquet, the managing editor at the newspaper. At The New Yorker, Ken Auletta writes about what happened behind the scenes: As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Working 9 to 5: A Reading List About the Way We Work
The lines between my life and these lists blur often, and this week is no exception; I begin a new job tomorrow. 1. “Workin’ 9 to 5 (What a Way to Make a Living).” (Megan Reynolds, The Billfold, April 2014) “I can’t shake the feeling that the 9-to-5 grind carries the one hallmark of adulthood—obligation. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Working 9 to 5: A Reading List About the Way We Work
The lines between my life and these lists blur often, and this week is no exception; I begin a new job tomorrow. 1. “Workin’ 9 to 5 (What a Way to Make a Living).” (Megan Reynolds, The Billfold, April 2014) “I can’t shake the feeling that the 9-to-5 grind carries the one hallmark of adulthood—obligation. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
'Write What You Want — But Be Prepared for the Consequences'
I’m reasonably certain that John Ashcroft didn’t recognize himself disguised as the evil high school guidance counselor in one of my novels. But like so much else, this thorny matter requires consideration on a case-by-case basis. In Mary McCarthy’s story “The Cicerone,” Peggy Guggenheim, the important collector of modern art, appears as Polly Grabbe, an […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A New York Times Reporter's Discovery About Pakistan and Bin Laden
In trying to prove that the ISI knew of Bin Laden’s whereabouts and protected him, I struggled for more than two years to piece together something other than circumstantial evidence and suppositions from sources with no direct knowledge. Only one man, a former ISI chief and retired general, Ziauddin Butt, told me that he thought […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
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.