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Breaking the Mold
Jessica Gross | Longreads | August 2015 | 17 minutes (4,402 words) Bella DePaulo, a Harvard-trained social scientist who is now a Project Scientist at UCSB, started her career researching deception....
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The Girl Who Slept with God
Val Brelinski |The Girl Who Slept with God | Viking | August 2015 | 9 minutes (2,100 words) Below is an excerpt from the debut novel by Val Brelinski, as chosen by Longreads contributing editor Sari...
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Whale Watch
Eric Wagner | Orion | July / August 2015 | 18 minutes (4,486 words) The following Longreads Exclusive comes from the latest issue of Orion magazine. Subscribe or sign up for a free trial issue. * *...
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Franklin, Reconsidered: An Essay by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore | Introduction to The Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin | Everyman’s Library | September 2015 | 18 minutes (4,968 words) Below is Jill Lepore’s introductory essay to...
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The Nine Lives of Cat Videos
Jillian Steinhauer | Longreads | September 2015 | 15 minutes (3,800 words) The following essay is excerpted from Cat Is Art Spelled Wrong, in which 14 writers address the following question: Why...
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Yonkers, Housing Desegregation and the Youngest Mayor in America
Lisa Belkin | Show Me a Hero, Little, Brown and Company | 1999 | 25 minutes (6,235 words) Below is the first chapter of Lisa Belkin’s 1999 nonfiction book Show Me a Hero, which was recently adapted...
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On the Other Hand
Jon Irwin | Kill Screen | September 2015 | 22 minutes (5,439 words) We’re excited to present a new Longreads Exclusive from Kill Screen—writer Jon Irwin goes inside the life of a man who helped keep...
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The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
Alina Simone | Atlas Obscura | September 2015 | 23 minutes (5,747 words) Our latest Exclusive is a new story by Alina Simone, co-funded by Longreads Members and published by Atlas Obscura. * * * Last...
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How Mary Karr Teaches Her Students About Memory: A Short Excerpt from ‘The...
Memoirist, essayist and poet Mary Karr is often recognized as being the author with perhaps the single greatest responsibility for the resurgence of memoir in bookstores and on nightstands in recent...
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How to Get SuperBetter
Jessica Gross | Longreads | September 2015 | 18 minutes (4,658 words) In 2009, while game designer Jane McGonigal was writing her first book, Reality Is Broken, she hit her head. The concussion...
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The Radical Pessimism of Dashiell Hammett
David Lehman | The American Scholar | Fall 2015 | 19 minutes (4,696 words) Our latest Longreads Exclusive comes from the new issue of The American Scholar. Our thanks to them for sharing this essay...
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‘We Value Experience’: Can a Secret Society Become a Business?
Rick Paulas | Longreads | September 2015 | 31 minutes (7,584 words) The bespectacled man with short-cropped hair stood up. “Can I ask a question!” the man shouted, vocal cords straining. The audience...
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Atomic Summer: An Essay by Joni Tevis
Joni Tevis | The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse | Milkweed Editions | May 2015 | 28 minutes (7,494 words) Below is Joni Tevis’s essay “Damn Cold in February: Buddy Holly,...
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My Unsentimental Education
Debra Monroe | My Unsentimental Education, The University of Georgia Press | Oct. 2015 | 14 minutes (3,487 words) A misfit in Spooner, Wisconsin, with its farms, bars, and strip joints, Debra Monroe...
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Appropriate for a Seven-Year-Old Child
Marlo Mack’s podcast How To Be a Girl is a sensitive and honest exploration of the joys, fears, and struggles of raising of a transgender child. Earlier this year, Marlo and her seven-year-old daughter...
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Relearning How to Talk in the Age of Smartphone Addiction
Jessica Gross | Longreads | October 2015 | 17 minutes (4,263 words) Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, has studied our relationship with technology for...
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The Politics of Poetry
David Orr | Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry | HarperCollins | 2011 | 18 minutes (4,527 words) The essay below is excerpted from David Orr’s 2011 book Beautiful & Pointless: A...
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The Teachings of Don Carlos
Mike Sager | Scary Monsters and Super Freaks | Thunder’s Mouth Press | December, 2003 | 85 minutes (21,125 words) Journalist Mike Sager originally wrote this article in 1999 as a long project for...
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I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo
Mark Essig | Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig | Basic Books | May 2015 | 20 minutes (5,293 words) Below is an excerpt from Lesser Beasts, by Mark Essig, as recommended by...
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Hell—Nothing Less—And Without End: Six Days in Warsaw
Miron Białoszewski | A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising | New York Review Books | translated from the Polish by Madeline G. Levine | October 2015 | 37 minutes (10,141 words) Below is an excerpt from A...
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