Afghanistan, Journalism

Long Reads

Good Reads in the Long Form

I’m old enough to remember when the mailman brought LIFE magazine to our house. It was a big event every week. The magazine was a coffee table size, for one thing, and almost always featured an interesting, even arresting, cover photo or illustration. I’ve been a sucker for magazines ever since.

TIME is on our coffee table along with The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and a new favorite The Week. I’ve lately become a fan of The London Review of Books. It’s fun and interesting to read a British take on U.S. literature and to read about many books – and subjects – that you may never find in a local bookstore. I’ve been a subscriber at various times to Harper’s, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, National Geographic and long ago to Boys’ Life. I like magazines.

I particularly like the long form stories that are a New Yorker speciality and I made a happy discovery recently that a great website – Longreads– regularly compiles the longreads from many different sources.

The Longread site has links to articles on everything from comedy to Russia, from San Francisco to Science and links to the articles that are finalists for the National Magazine Awards.

If you like magazines, this site is almost like visiting an old fashioned newsstand and browsing the titles. Good stuff.