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Interview with a Torturer
Rithy Panh with Christophe Bataille | Translated by John Cullen | The Elimination: A survivor of the Khmer Rouge confronts his past and the commandant of the killing fields | Other Press | February...
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Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Prep,’ 10 Years Later
Sari Botton | Longreads | March 2015 It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, was first published. And not just because the passage of time, in hindsight,...
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‘I Would Prefer Not To’: The Origins of the White Collar Worker
Nikil Saval | Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace | Doubleday | April 2014 | 31 minutes (8,529 words) Below is an excerpt from the book Cubed, by Nikil Saval, as recommended by Longreads...
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Buried Alive in a Grain Silo
Erika Hayasaki | December 2014 | 2,554 words (10 minutes) Four years ago, Erika Hayasaki learned about the death of two young men in a corn grain bin accident in the Midwest. Over the next two years,...
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Escape from Baghdad!: Saad Hossain’s New Satire of the Iraq War
Saad Hossain | Escape from Baghdad! | Unnamed Press | March 2015 | 23 minutes (6,311 words) Below are the opening chapters of the novel Escape from Baghdad!, by Saad Hossain, as recommended by...
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The King’s Last Game
Steven Church | Ultrasonic: Essays | 2014 | 15 minutes (3,655 words) Imagine this: It’s early in the morning at the Graceland estate, well before dawn on August 16, 1977, just a few hours before...
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Tennessee Williams on His Women, His Writer’s Block, and Whether It All Mattered
James Grissom | Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog | Knopf | March 2015 | 26 minutes (7,038 words) Below is an excerpt from the book Follies of God, by James Grissom, as...
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Slavery and Freedom in New York City
Eric Foner | Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad | W. W. Norton & Company | January 2015 | 31 minutes (8,362 words) Below is an excerpt from the book Gateway to...
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In the Grand Scheme of Things
Hana Schank | From ‘The Edge of Normal’ | June 2015 | 11 minutes (2,634 words) The following is an excerpt from The Edge of Normal, Hana Schank’s story about what it’s like to raise a child with...
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Your Phone Was Made By Slaves: A Primer on the Secret Economy
Kevin Bales | Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World | Spiegel & Grau | January 2016 | 34 minutes (9,162 words) Below is an excerpt from Blood and Earth, by...
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Postwar New York: The Supreme Metropolis of the Present
David Reid | The Brazen Age: New York City and the American Empire: Politics, Art, and Bohemia | Pantheon | March 2016 | 31 minutes (8,514 words) The excerpt below is adapted from The Brazen Age, by...
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Women Were Included in the Civil Rights Act as a Joke
Gillian Thomas | Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Women’s Lives at Work | St. Martin’s Press | March 2016 | 20 minutes (5,287 words) The excerpt below is...
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A Fish So Coveted People Have Smuggled, Kidnapped, and Killed For It
Emily Voigt | Scribner | May 2016 | 18 minutes (4,498 words) The excerpt below is adapted from The Dragon Behind the Glass, by Emily Voigt. This story is recommended by Longreads editor Mike Dang. *...
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Mass Extinction: The Early Years
Ashley Dawson | Extinction: A Radical History | OR Books | July 2016 | 13 minutes (3,487 words) Below is an excerpt from Extinction: A Radical History, by Ashley Dawson, who argues that contemporary...
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How the Brontës Came Out As Women
Claire Harman | Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart | Knopf | March 2016 | 32 minutes (7,925 words) The excerpt below is adapted from Claire Harman’s biography of Charlotte Brontë. It tells the story of...
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On Female Friendship and the Sisters We Choose for Ourselves
Chloe Caldwell | I’ll Tell You In Person | Coffee House Press | October 2016 | 19 minutes (4,768 words) “Do you get in bed and cuddle with Chloe in the mornings?” It was an early evening in spring, and...
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A Stranger in the World: The Memoir of a Musician on Tour
Franz Nicolay | The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar | July 2016 | 25 minutes (6,916 words) Below is an excerpt from The Humorless Ladies...
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Becoming One of the World’s 65 Million Refugees
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson | Cast Away: True Stories of Survival from Europe’s Refugee Crisis | The New Press | September 2016 | 20 minutes (5,452 words) Below is an excerpt from Cast Away, by...
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King-Killers in America (and the American Who Avenged the King)
Michael Walsh & Don Jordan | The King’s Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History | Pegasus Books | August 2016 | 26 minutes (6,559 words) The excerpt below is adapted from...
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Hello, Lenin? (Berlin, 1997)
Rebecca Schuman | Schadenfreude, A Love Story | Flatiron Books | February 2017 | 10 minutes (2950 words) This excerpt was adapted from Schadenfreude, A Love Story: Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of...
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