December 2011
88 posts
Let’s Start Paying College Athletes →
A step-by-step proposal for fixing the broken economics of big-time college sports.
Joe Nocera |
New York Times Magazine |
Dec 2011
Mirrorings →
The writer contemplates beauty and identity following reconstructive surgery.
There was a long period of time, almost a year, during which I never looked in a mirror. It wasn’t easy, for I’d never suspected just how omnipresent are our own images. I began by merely avoiding mirrors, but by the end of the year I found myself with an acute knowledge of the reflected image, its numerous tricks and...
What Went Wrong? →
How an up-and-coming Boston surgeon became best known for leaving a patient on the operating table while he skipped out to cash a check.
Neil Swidey |
Boston Globe |
Mar 2004
Longform’s Favorite Finds of 2011 →
When we started the site, we worried that we might run out of older pieces eventually. In retrospect, that fear was ridiculous. With over a century of magazines and newspapers publishing longform journalism, the well of great stories waiting to be discovered is unfathomably deep.
Over at Readability, our editors highlight the best classic stories that resurfaced on Longform this year.
Presumed Guilty →
Tim Masters becomes the main suspect in a gruesome Colorado murder; he’s eventually convicted thanks the work of a revered detective. Then the case unravels: DNA proves another man committed the crime.
Mitch Gelman |
5280 |
Jan 2012
A World on Fire →
The story of eight young people who died in a New Orleans squat fire.
Danelle Morton |
Boston Review |
Jan 2012
Drone-Ethics Briefing →
The transcript from an lecture presentedby In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital arm, on the ethics of drones, military robots, and cyborg soldiers.
Patrick Lin |
The Atlantic |
Dec 2011
Drone-Ethics Briefing →
The transcript from an lecture presentedby In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital arm, on the ethics of drones, military robots, and cyborg soldiers.
Patrick Lin |
The Atlantic |
Dec 2011
#Riot →
On the intersection of technology and revolt.
Bill Wasik |
Wired |
Jan 2012
Between the Lines →
On the science of parking spaces.
Dave Gardetta |
LA Magazine |
Dec 2011
Little Boy Lost →
On a child diagnosed with autism:
The worst part was that I knew he sensed it, too. In the same way that I know when he wants vegetable puffs or puréed fruit by the subtle pitch of his cries, I could tell that he also perceived the change—and feared it. At night he was terrified to go to bed, needing to hold my fingers with one hand and touch my face with the other in order to get the few ...
The Good Seed →
A 21-year-old falls into a coma from which he’ll never emerge. His mother, desperate to grant his wish of becoming a father, has his sperm preserved. Two years later, after a fruitless search for other alternatives, she finds a willing doctor and tries one last option: carrying her son’s child herself.
Dan P. Lee |
GQ |
Jun 2011
The Recruiters’ War →
Military recruiters reveal just how corrupted—and sometimes deadly—their job has become.
Michael Bronner |
Vanity Fair |
Sep 2005
Trash, Art, and the Movies →
There is so much talk now about the art of the film that we may be in danger of forgetting that most of the movies we enjoy are not works of art.
Pauline Kael |
Harpers |
Feb 1969
The New Dealers →
The unlikely people who’ve turned to selling weed in the recession.
Tony D’Souza |
Mother Jones |
Dec 2011
Navigating Love and Autism →
A young couple’s story.
Amy Harmon |
New York Times |
Dec 2011
The Xinjiang Procedure →
A doctor reveals widespread organ harvesting of prisoners in China.
Ethan Gutmann |
The Weekly Standard |
Dec 2011
Outsourcing Jobs →
Walter Isaacson’s book is long, dull, often flat-footed, and humorless. It hammers on one nail, incessantly: that Steve Jobs was an awful man, but awful in the service of products people really liked (and eventually bought lots of) and so in the end his awfulness was probably OK.
Gary Sernovitz |
N+1 |
Dec 2011
Stumptown Girl →
A profile of Carrie Brownstein, riot grrrl and creator of Portlandia.
Margaret Talbot |
New Yorker |
Dec 2011
The Last Movie Maestro →
A profile of John Williams.
John Jurgensen |
Wall Street Journal |
Dec 2011
Business, Casual. →
TheFacebook, as it was then called, had just reached 1.5 million users:
In the end, Zuckerberg says, quarrels over money rarely come up because money is not their priority.
“We’re in a really interesting place because if you look at the assets we have, we’re fucking rich,” Zuckerberg adds. “But if you look at like the cash and the amount of money we have to live with, we’re dirt poor. All ...
Stories to Live With →
Coping with a brother’s suicide.
We tell stories about the dead in order that they may live, if not in body then at least in mind—the minds of those left behind. Although the dead couldn’t care less about these stories—all available evidence suggests the dead don’t care about much—it seems that if we tell them often enough, and listen carefully to the stories of others, our knowledge of the dead...
Retail Therapy →
How Viennese psychologist Ernest Dichter transformed advertising:
What makes soap interesting? Why choose one brand over another? Dichter’s first contract was with the Compton Advertising Agency, to help them sell Ivory soap. Market research typically involved asking shoppers questions like “Why do you use this brand of soap?” Or, more provocatively, “Why don’t you use this brand of soap?”...
How Ethiopia’s Adoption Industry Dupes Families... →
In 2008, a 38-year old Oklahoma nurse whom I’ll call Kelly adopted an eight-year old girl, “Mary,” from Ethiopia. It was the second adoption for Kelly, following one from Guatemala. She’d sought out a child from Ethiopia in the hopes of avoiding some of the ethical problems of adopting from Guatemala: widespread stories of birthmothers coerced to give up their babies and even payments and...
No Country for Innocent Men →
Why it took more than a decade for the posthumous pardon of Tim Cole, even after another inmate confessed to the brutal crime that put Cole away.
Beth Schwartzapfel |
Mother Jones |
Jan 2012
In the Land of the Dear Leader →
The author travels to North Korea in the years after Kim Jong Il’s succession. He also gets a haircut:
But suddenly the whole chair starts vibrating and I find myself surrendering to her, as she begins to knead the acupressure points on my forehead and neck. Next it’s ginseng unguent all over my face. Gobs of pomade smelling like bubble gum go on my hair. Then, like a true daughter of the...
From Pakistan to Afghanistan, U.S. Finds Convoy of... →
What happened when Pakistan shut down the vitally important Karachi to Kabul trucking line.
Shahan Mufti |
Businessweek |
Dec 2011
Say Hello to My Little Friend →
How shrunken heads ended up in downtown Chicago.
Mary Roach |
Outside |
Jan 2012
A Family Obsessed →
On February 10, 1982, Lucy Dixon’s daughter was raped. Against all odds, she and her family brought the man to justice.
Scott Kraft |
The Associated Press |
Jul 1984
Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy... →
Inside the shadowy meetings between Chicago’s violent gang members and its elected officials.
DAVID BERNSTEIN AND NOAH ISACKSON |
Chicago Magazine |
Dec 2011
The Kiss →
The Vancouver riots and an unforgettable image.
Chris Ballard |
Sports Illustrated |
Dec 2012
No Ordinary Counterfeit →
Alarmingly sophisticated imitations of American currency have turned up all over the world and the false-paper trail leads to North Korea.
Stephen Mihm |
New York Times Magazine |
Jul 06
Chuck Berry Goddamn! →
Now 85, Berry still records live music. He just doesn’t want you to hear it.
Luke Dittrich |
Esquire |
Jan 2012
The Collector →
He was the world’s foremost collector of presidential memorabilia, an outsider with a pathological need to fit in. He was also a thief.
Eliza Gray |
The New Repbulic |
Dec 2011
Hannah and Andrew →
In October 2006 a four-year-old from Corpus Christi named Andrew Burd died mysteriously of salt poisoning. His foster mother, Hannah Overton, was charged with capital murder, vilified from all quarters, and sent to prison for life. But was this churchgoing young woman a vicious child killer? Or had the tragedy claimed its second victim?
Pamela Colloff |
Texas Monthly |
Jan 2012
Peter Braunstein, WWD Writer Turned Tabloid... →
A former colleague visits the ‘Fire Fiend’ in prison.
Aaron Gell |
New York Observer |
Dec 2011
A Thing or Two About Twins →
The search for what makes identical twins different.
Peter Miller |
National Geographic |
Dec 2011
Inside Marilyn Chambers →
A profile of a porn star on trial.
Pat Jordan |
GQ |
Sep 1987
The Seat Pleasant 59 →
In 1988, 59 fifth graders in Washington D.C. were promised a free college education. This is the story of what followed.
Paul Schwartzman |
Washington Post |
Dec 2011
Alone In the Dark →
On the “horrible weirdness” of Kim Jung Il’s Korea.
Philip Gourevitch |
New Yorker |
Sep 2003
Exit Havel →
A portrait of Czech President Václav Havel as he left office.
David Remnick |
New Yorker |
Feb 2003
You Say You Want a Devolution? →
Why little has changed in popular American style in the last 20 years.
Why is this happening? In some large measure, I think, it’s an unconscious collective reaction to all the profound nonstop newness we’re experiencing on the tech and geopolitical and economic fronts. People have a limited capacity to embrace flux and strangeness and dissatisfaction, and right now we’re maxed out.
Kurt...
If I Die Young →
A year in the life of an oxycodone addict.
John Pendygraft,Lane DeGregory |
St. Pete Times |
Dec 2011
Why Can’t Linda Carswell Get Her Husband’s Heart... →
How a Texas woman pushed for autopsy reform.
Clinical autopsies, once commonplace in American hospitals, have become an increasing rarity and are conducted in just 5 percent of hospital deaths. Grief-stricken families like the Carswells desperately want the answers that an autopsy can provide. But they often do not know their rights in dealing with either coroners or medical examiners, who...
Longform’s Best Tech Writing of 2011 →
The Best Crime Writing of 2011
Our picks for the top 10 tech stories of the year, including work by Ashlee Vance (Businessweek), Alex Blumberg and Laura Sydell (Planet Money), and Maciej Ceglowski (Pinboard).
See the full list.
|
|
Now That the Factories Are Closed, It’s Tee Time... →
After decades of failed revitalization strategies, a town of 10,000 tries another.
Johnathan Mahler |
New York Times Magazine |
Dec 2011
Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011 →
A great journalist’s greatest magazine stories.
Christopher Hitchens |
New York Times MagazineSlateThe AtlanticVanity Fair |
Some Assembly Required →
On the recovery of snowboarder Kevin Pearce, who suffered a massive brain injury five days before the 2010 Olympics.
Jonah Lehrer |
Outside |
Dec 2011
Give All →
James Wood on Saul Bellow:
One realizes, with a shock, that Bellow has taught one how to see and how to hear, has opened the senses. Until this moment one had not really thought of the looseness of a lightbulb filament, one had not heard the saliva bubbling in the harmonica, one had not seen well enough the nose pitted with black pores, and the demolition ball’s slow, heavy selection of its...
Longform’s Best Crime Writing of 2011 →
The Best Crime Writing of 2011
Our picks for the top 10 crime stories of the year, including work by David Grann (The New Yorker), Rich Schapiro (Wired), and Skip Hollandsworth (Texas Monthly).
See the full list.
|
|