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Longform episodes
- Episode 469: George Saunders
George Saunders is the author of eleven books. His latest is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.
”I really have so much affection for being alive. I really enjoy it. And yet, I’m a little negative minded in a lot of ways too, like I really think things tend to be fucked up. ... To get that on the page—to sufficiently praise the loveliness of the world without being a sap, and also lacerate the world for being so goddamn mean—to do those in the same story would be a great aspiration. And I haven’t gotten there yet.”
Show notes:
- georgesaundersbooks.com
- Saunders on Longform
Saunders on the Longform Podcast (Jan 2014)- Saunders' Story Club newsletter
- 16:00 "First Thohts on Reviision" (Story Club • Dec 2021)
- 28:00 "The Great Divider" (GQ • Jan 2007)
- 48:00 "Sea Oak" (New Yorker • Dec 1998)
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54 min - Episode 468: Emily Oster
Emily Oster is an economist, professor, and author. Her new book is The Family Firm.
”[COVID] has been 18 months of being a person who is slightly more public, who is saying things that are somewhat more controversial, where people yell at me a lot. ... I do much less reading of the comments than I did early on because I found that eventually I just got mad and that's not a productive way to interact. And it affects how I think about what I write, and I would like what I write to be the things that I think are true, not the things I think will avoid people being angry.”
Show notes:
- @ProfEmilyOster
- emilyoster.net
"Steve Cohen-Backed Radkl Hires DeFi Trader Aaron Lammer" (Nick Baker • Bloomberg • Nov 2021)Expecting Better (Penguin Books • 2014)Cribsheet (Penguin Books • 2020)The Family Firm (Penguin Books • 2021)- Oster’s Parent Data newsletter
- 35:00 "Antibiotics and Allergies, Zika, Travel Baby Carriers..." (Parent Data • Feb 2020)
- 36:00 "Grandparents & Day Care" (Parent Data • May 2020)
- 36:00 "She Fought to Reopen Schools, Becoming a Hero and a Villain" (Dana Goldstein • New York Times • Jun 2021)
- 36:00 "Emily Oster, the Brown Economist, Is Launching a New Data Hub on Schools and the Pandemi." (Dana Goldstein • New York Times • Sept 2021)
- 36:00 "Schools Aren’t Super-Spreaders" (The Atlantic • Oct 2020)
- 37:00 "Your Unvaccinated Kid Is Like a Vaccinated Grandma" (The Atlantic • Mar 2021)
- 42:00 Oster’s COVID-19 School Response Dashboard
- 44:00 "Emily Oster Thinks of Herself As an Expert on Data in Parenting, Not Parenting Itself" (Alex Hazlett • The Cut • Aug 2021)
- 45:00 "Pandemic Schooling Mode and Student Test Scores: Evidence from US States" (Clare Halloran, Rebecca Jack, James Okun, Emily Oster • NBER • Nov 2021)
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51 min - Episode 467: Kelefa Sanneh
Kelefa Sanneh is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His book is Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.
“I’m always thinking about how to not be that person at a party who corners you and tells you about their favorite thing and you’re trying to get away. It’s got to feel light and fun. And what that means in practice is writing about music for readers who don’t care about music, while at the same time writing something that the connoisseurs don’t roll their eyes too hard at.”
Show notes:
- Sanneh on Longform
- Sanneh's New Yorker archive
- 01:00 "The Education of a Part-Time Punk" (New Yorker • Sep 2021)
- 14:00 "Paul McCartney Doesn't Really Want to Stop the Show" (David Remnick • New Yorker • Oct 2021)
- 17:00 "How Morgan Wallen Became the Most Wanted Man in Country" (New Yorker • Dec 2020)
- 23:00 "Party of One" (New Yorker • Jul 2009)
- 25:00 "Can Jake Paul Fight His Way Out of Trouble?" (New Yorker • Nov 2021)
- 34:00 "Gettin' Paid" (New Yorker • Aug 2001)
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50 min - Episode 466: Anita Hill
Anita Hill is a professor and author. Her new book is Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.
"I really do feel that my life now has purpose. And my responsibility really is to live out that purpose as much as possible. The reason that this isn’t entirely daunting is that I realize I am one individual. And that the issues will not depend on me entirely. … But I also realize that every person who has the opportunity should be involved, and that includes me."
Show notes:
- @AnitaHill
- 00:00 Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence (Viking • 2021)
- 01:00 Because of Anita (Pineapple Street Studios • 2021)
- 01:00 Getting Even with Anita Hill (Pushkin Industries)
- 01:00 "Believing Is A Book Only Anita Hill Could Have Written" (Danielle Kurtzleben • NPR • Sep 2021)
- 33:00 "The Bad Guys Are Winning" (Anne Applebaum • The Atlantic • Nov 2021)
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44 min - Episode 465: Ben Austen and Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Ben Austen is a journalist and the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Together they host the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are.
”We're not pretending to have all the answers, but we are attempting to say, ‘this is a real issue and it can't be covered up by simply ignoring it.’ And if you can see it for what it is and all of its full dimensions, you have a better shot at bringing people along to get the work done to fix it.”
Show notes:
- @ben_austen
- @KhalilGMuhammad
- Austen on Longform
- Muhammad on Longform
- 01:00 High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing (Ben Austen • HarperCollins • 2019)
- 01:00 The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Khalil Gibran Muhammad • Harvard University Press • 2019)
- 01:00 "The Barbaric History of Sugar in America" (Khalil Gibran Muhammad • New York Times Magazine • Aug 2019)
- 29:00 Some of My Friends Are, "Critical Race Theory in the Classroom" (Pushkin Industries • Sep 2021)
- 36:00 "And So Jedidiah Brown Gave All of Himself to the City He Loved" (Ben Austen • Huffington Post • Sep 2017)
- 43:00 Some of My Friends Are, "European Prisons vs. American Prisons" (Pushkin Industries • Sep 2021)
- 43:00 "Race and Racism Through the Lens of an Interracial Friendship" (The Brian Lehrer Show • Sep 2021)
- 54:00 Some of My Friends Are, "Fighting Inequities Through Art" (Pushkin Industries • Nov 2021)
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1 hr 2 min - Episode 464: Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is a journalist and editor who writes the column "Ask A Swole Woman," which now appears in her newsletter ”She's a Beast.”
”I feel more comfortable lately with a sort of beloved-local-restaurant level of success. What's nice about Substack is that we've come to this place that I hope lasts where we can have this sort of local restaurant relationship with writers, or I can have that with readers, where I don't have to be part of this big machine in order to do something that I really like.”
Show notes:
- @caseyjohnston
- caseyjohnston.net
- She's A Beast newsletter
- Ask a Swole Woman at VICE
- 13:00 My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday's Endless Appetizers (Caity Weaver • Gawker • Jul 2014)
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46 min - Episode 463: Mitchell S. Jackson
Mitchell S. Jackson is a journalist and author. His profile of Ahmaud Arbery, ”Twelve Minutes and a Life,” won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
”What is 'great'? 'Great' isn’t really sales, right? No one cares what James Baldwin sold. So: Are you doing the important work?”
Show notes:
- @MitchSJackson
- mitchellsjackson.com
- Jackson on Longform
- 00:00 "Twelve Minutes and a Life" (Runner’s World • Jun 2020)
- 01:00 Pafko at the Wall (Don DeLillo • Scribner • 2001)
- 03:00 "Ahmaud Arbery’s Final Minutes: What Videos and 911 Calls Show" (Malachy Browne, Drew Jordan, Dmitriy Khavin and Ainara Tiefenthaler • New York Times • May 2020)
- 12:00 "We Went to Vegas to Wring Joy From Heartbreak" (New York Times Magazine • Sep 2021)
- 16:00 Survival Math (Scribner • 2020)
- 24:00 The Residue Years (Bloomsbury • 2014)
- 29:00 "Chuck Palahniuk, Tom Spanbauer Share Writing Secrets" (Jeff Baker • Oregonian • May 2014)
- 34:00 "When Michael B. Jordan Promises to Come Home, He Means It" (Esquire • Nov 2019)
- 36:00 "Chris Rock's Plan for Immortality" (Esquire • May 2021)
- 44:00 "Prison" (Richard Just, Editor • Washington Post • Oct 2019)
- 44:00 "Calendars" (Washington Post • Oct 2019)
- 45:00 Olio (Tyehimba Jess • Wave Books • 2016)
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1 hr - Episode 462: Ben Smith
Ben Smith is the media columnist for The New York Times. He was the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News.
”I do think there's some kind of personality flaw deep in there of wanting to like, you know, find stuff out and tell people.... I'm not sure that's a totally sane or healthy personality trait, but it is definitely, for me, a personality trait…. I think that in political reporting, certainly, there's a kind of reporter who thinks that their job is basically to pull the masks off of these monsters. And I generally tend to think all these people—with some exceptions—are weird and complicated and often doing really awful things. But they aren't necessarily irredeemable or impossible to understand…. They're interesting.”
Show notes:
- @benyt
- Smith on Longform
- Smith on Longform Podcast
- Smith's New York Times archive
- Smith's BuzzFeed News archive
- 04:00 "Goldman Sachs, Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong" (New York Times • Sept 2021)
- 11:00 "At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, Allegations of Sex, Lies and a Secret Payment" (New York Times • Oct 2021)
- 11:00 "Powerful German Newspaper Ousts Editor After Times Report on Workplace Behavior" (New York Times • Oct 2021)
- 15:00 "Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists" (BuzzFeed News • Nov 2014)
- 15:00 "Starting Trouble With Times Media Columnist Ben Smith" (New York Magazine • Sept 2020)
- 15:00 "Chaos Theory: A Unified Theory of Muppet Types" (Dahlia Lithwick • Slate • Jun 2012)
- 21:00 "Postcard From Peru: Why the Morality Plays Inside The Times Won’t Stop" (New York Times • Feb 2021)
- 21:00 "An Arrest in Canada Casts a Shadow on a New York Times Star" (New York Times • Oct 2020)
- 22:00 "What’s Really Happening At The New York Times" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2019)
- 23:00 "Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism" (New York Times • Mar 2020)
- 23:00 "Exclusive: New York Times Editor Dean Baquet Has Been Running the Gray Lady from L.A." (Kali Hays • Los Angeles Magazine • July 2021)
- 24:00 "Why Hasn’t the New York Times Made Ben Smith Sell His BuzzFeed Options Yet?" (Justin Peters • Slate • Oct 2021)
- 27:00 David Carr's New York Times archive
- 33:00 "Muslims Barred from Picture at Obama Event" (Politico • Jun 2008)
- 36:00 "Ghostwriting" (Alex Sujong Laughlin • Study Hall • Oct 2021)
- 38:00 "These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia" (Ken Bensigner, Miriam Elder, Mark Schoofs • BuzzFeed News • Jan 2017)
- 40:00 Platformer (Casey Newton)
- 40:00 Garbage Day (Ryan Broderick)
- 40:00 Ask Polly (Heather Havrilesky)
- 40:00 Ask Molly (Heather Havrilesky)
- 41:00 70 Over 70 (Max Linsky • Pineapple Street Studios)
- 41:00 "What’s the Key to a Good Life? Ask the People Who’ve Lived Long Enough to Know." (Margaret Sullivan • The Washington Post • May 2021)
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59 min - Episode 461: Jay Caspian Kang
Jay Caspian Kang is a contributor at New York Times Magazine. His new book is The Loneliest Americans.
”I have a lot of thoughts and talk to people to make sure my thoughts are right, or change them because I think they're wrong. What more does one want out of an intellectual life? It's good work.”
Show notes:
- @jaycaspiankang
- Kang on Longform
Kang on Longform Podcast (Apr 2013)Kang on Longform Podcast (Aug 2017)- Kang’s New York Times Magazine newsletter
- 5:00 "The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High" (The Morning News • Oct 2010)
- 12:00 "Bing Liu Sees Skateboarding as a Tool for Life" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2019)
- 35:00 Time To Say Goodbye podcast
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48 min - Episode 460: Mary Roach
Mary Roach is the author of seven nonfiction books, including her latest, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.
"In these realms of the taboo, there's a tremendous amount of material that is really interesting, but that people have stayed away from. ... I'm kind of a bottom feeder. It's down there on the bottom where people don't want to go. But if that's what it takes to find interesting, new material, I'm fine with it. I don't care. I'm not easily grossed out. I don't feel that there's any reason why we shouldn't look at this. And over time, I started to feel that ... the taboo was preventing people from having conversations that it would be healthy to have."
Show notes:
- @mary_roach
- maryroach.net
- Roach on Longform
- 01:00 Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (W.W. Norton • 2021)
- 01:00 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (W.W. Norton • 2003)
- 01:00 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (W.W. Norton • 2008)
- 01:00 Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (W.W. Norton • 2010)
- 01:00 Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (W.W. Norton • 2014)
- 02:00 "Cute Inc." (Wired • Dec 1999)
- 12:00 Roach's Salon archive
- 46:00 "Hot Seat" (Discover • Mar 1998)
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59 min
About Longform
From the publisher's feed
Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.