“What’s so interesting about tragedy is even as it confirms what we sort of think is true about life, which is most of us just want to have a medium life, without attracting the ire—or the jealousy—of the Gods, it nonetheless is crucial to look at stories about people who go to the extremes, because […]
The New Yorker
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2013: Most Urgent Story, Award for Outstanding Reporting
Taken Sarah Stillman | The New Yorker | August 2013 | 45 minutes (11,405 words) Raphael Pope-Sussman (@AudacityofPope) is the managing editor of News Genius and a founding co-editor of BKLYNR. Sarah Stillman’s story describes the use of civil forfeiture, a process by which the state can confiscate individuals’ assets with no due process. I […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How To Get Your Own False Confession
“If you decide the suspect is lying, you leave the room and wait for five minutes. Then you return with an official-looking folder. ‘I have in this folder the results of our investigation,’ you say. You remain standing to establish your dominance. ‘After reviewing our results, we have no doubt that you committed the crime. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Happens When the State Separates a Mother From Her Child
“Sacha Coupet, a professor of law at Loyola University Chicago, who used to work as a guardian ad litem and as a psychologist, worries that the Adoption and Safe Families Act, by promoting ‘adoption as the normative ideal,’ has made it easier to avoid ‘dealing with the enormously complex root causes of child neglect and […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Making Marijuana Legal Might Not Save Police Money
“When legal marijuana goes on sale, sometime next spring, the black market will not simply vanish; over-the-counter pot will have to compete with illicit pot. To support the legal market, Kleiman argued, the state must intensify law-enforcement pressure on people who refuse to play by the new rules. A street dealer will have to be […]
Posted inGuest Pick, Nonfiction
Casey N. Cep on Ariel Levy’s ‘Thanksgiving in Mongolia’
“The essay is remarkable from its opening memories of Levy’s own childhood to its heartbreaking ending.”
Posted inCommunity Pick
‘Dr. Don’ and the Haunting Story of a Community
I’ve read just about every issue of The New Yorker for the past seven years, and despite all of the big, important journalism I’ve read in those pages, this minor-key piece about a small town druggist has resonated deepest with me.
Posted inUncategorized
Longreads Guest Pick: Todd Olmstead on 'Random Access Denied'
Todd Olmstead is Mashable’s Associate Community Manager and an occasional music writer. He lives in Brooklyn. My favorite longread this week is ‘Random Access Denied,’ by Sasha-Frere Jones in the New Yorker. It takes you through the mind of the reviewer, writing about a big-deal album, and peels back the curtain a bit. Who wouldn’t […]
Posted inUncategorized
“Lives of the Moral Saints.” Larissa MacFarquhar with David V. Johnson, Boston Review.
Posted inUncategorized
Longreads Best of 2012: Elliott Holt's Favorite New Yorker Fiction
Elliott Holt‘s first novel, You Are One of Them, will be published by The Penguin Press in June 2013 One of my two favorite short stories published in 2012 is “Member/Guest” by David Gilbert, which appeared in The New Yorker the week of November 12, but since that story is not available online without a subscription, […]