If you’ve finished winding your way through Elise Liu’s recommended New Yorker articles – which, as of this week, are free to be read online – you can start working your way through Longform’s roundup of their 25 favorite unlocked pieces. (Or you can go even bigger, thanks to The Awl.)
Combing The New Yorker’s Archives
A Little Day in the Life
“To Yanagihara, the commitment to journalism is a vital expression of the practical side of her nature: she likes the adrenaline of short deadlines and the satisfaction of making a new product each week.” The Guardian profiles Hanya Yanagihara about her life, fiction, and day job as the editor of T magazine, the New York Times style supplement. From our archives: The Millions’ interview with the acclaimed novelist.
Graffiti Street
“‘Tuya’ means ‘graffiti’ in Chinese—the name is recent—and this street, three-quarters of a mile long, may be the longest stretch of public art in the world. It’s also a government-sanctioned ‘art district,’ centered around the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, which was established in 1940…I noticed that every artist I spoke to referred to 2005 as the year everything changed. 2005 was the year the government became interested in art.” Art in Chongqing.
Titanic Fixes
Neil deGrasse Tyson just continues to fix the world, one piece of astronomical minutiae at a time. Theatergoers sitting through screenings of Titanic 3-D will no longer see an incorrect star field thanks to a “snarky” email sent by Dr. Tyson to director James Cameron.
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“I Will Ruin Him”
Creative writing teachers ply a hazardous trade. Don’t believe us? Then maybe this frightening tale — excerpted from an upcoming book, Give Me Everything You Have, which you can read more about in our preview — will help change your mind.
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Egan for President
“The power and meaning of the written word are central to the complexities we face today—both as a nation, and globally. To my mind, freedom of expression is a basic human right.” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan has been named the new president of PEN America. Pair with: our own Edan Lepucki‘s 2010 profile of Egan.
Walk, Don’t Run
Haruki Murakami retired his running shoes to walk to Kobe and rediscover his hometown. “Strictly speaking, it’s not my home town any more. I feel a deep sense of loss at this fact, as if the axis of my memories is faintly, but audibly, creaking within me. It’s a physical sensation,” he writes in an essay for Granta.
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