The New Yorker asked me for a favorite Longread from their archive, along with Dwight Garner, Maud Newton, Sloane Crosley and Laura Miller. It was an almost overwhelming task but I immediately thought of Joan Didion’s electric “Letter from Lakewood”.
If you’re going to get a subscription and dip into the archives, especially via iPad (highly recommended–the iPad/tablet version of the magazine is excellent), here are some more suggestions.
- The Tiny Feast by Chris Adrian
- The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
- Something That Needs Nothing by Miranda July
- Alone by Yiyun Li
- The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm
- The Custodian, by Deborah Eisenberg
- Nilda by Junot Diaz
- Cinnamon Skin by Edmund White
- Lesbian Nation by Ariel Levy
- Reverting to a Wild State by Justin Torres
And, of course, the 114 stories Mavis Gallant has published there, and the excerpt from her diaries.
Koreanish 
Beautiful. Thank you for this.