As we try to get the mildew out of the swimsuits we left in the corner over the weekend, we wanted to leave you a pile of stories for when you take refuge from the baking heat of August and are looking for something to read other than the rusty box of Old Bay seasoning [...]
Tag Archives: The New Yorker
What we’re reading: in which we consider segregated high school reunions, the vanishing middle class, notes from a Pynchon conference and “death in the age of the Internet”
August 9, 2010 – 4:21 pm
Rebecca Skloot on narrating history: “looking for that one family, that one person, that one moment that will help hold everything together”
July 16, 2010 – 12:53 pm
We spoke this week with Rebecca Skloot, author of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” A longtime science writer with a commitment to narrative, Skloot has written for The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; and Discover, among other publications. Her book recounts the story of an African-American tobacco farmer whose cancer [...]
Give Me Something To Read: collecting long-form journalism online
June 7, 2010 – 4:12 pm
[One in an occasional series of talks with people highlighting long-form journalism online. Prior posts in this series include a look at Gangrey.com and Twitter’s @longreads.]
From “a really little town” in Berkshire County, England, Richard Dunlop-Walters hopes to give you something worth checking out at a site called, well, “Give Me Something To Read.” The [...]
From tales of wonder to tales of horror: David Small dissects Stitches
May 14, 2010 – 11:40 am
David Small has made a career illustrating books for children. So it was no surprise that he should be the featured speaker on the last day of Harvard’s popular class, “History, Philosophy and Literature of Childhood,” taught by Maria Tatar. But on that chilly spring afternoon, standing in front of 190 eager undergraduates, he came [...]
David Grann on murder, madness and writing for The New Yorker
April 5, 2010 – 3:48 pm
After years spent thinking he would become a novelist, David Grann turned to nonfiction, realizing that if he found intriguing characters and situations in real life, he “simply had to excavate them and tell them in a compelling way.” He has gone on to produce many memorable tales, like his account of a deeply problematic execution in Texas [...]
Jared Diamond, The New Yorker and the awkwardness of anecdotes
December 3, 2009 – 3:59 pm
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, in which she described how stereotypes develop when one community has only a single narrative about another. The post also referenced National Geographic writer Tom O’Neill, who sometimes resists centering a narrative on a single subject when he is reporting from abroad.
Last week in Anthropology [...]
The end of the line for the Lone Ranger? A how-to guide for narrative collaboration
November 24, 2009 – 12:12 pm
When The Roanoke Times “Age of Uncertainty” won Documentary Project of the Year from Pictures of the Year International, it wasn’t the narrative writing or the photography or the Web design they wanted our insights on. They asked us to speak at their 2009 conference about a topic more nuanced and, I would argue, more important [...]
GQ and The New Yorker: two takes on brain damage from football
October 26, 2009 – 4:35 pm
For a primer on different approaches to storytelling, take a look at two recent narratives on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In GQ, Jeanne Marie Laskas’ “Game Brain” follows a pathologist who discovers CTE through an autopsy on a football player. The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell also addresses the current science of football head trauma in [...]
The Real Work
August 8, 2008 – 12:00 am
Our second notable narrative for this month, “The Real Work,” delves into the legacy of magic and magicians, moving from its youngest apprentices to its veterans and the debate over its future. The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik avoids the temptation to give away the tricks of the trade. Instead, he traces the roots of magic’s [...]
