United States
Discuss a longform magazine or newspaper article with a group of longreads fans in this monthly club from the Magazines and Newspapers Center. It’s like a book club, but instead of books we discuss periodical articles of approximately 10,000 words in length, which take about an hour to read.
To participate, read the month's selection ahead of time, then join the discussion at the appointed time and location.
The agenda of the meeting includes round-robin introductions, a forty-five minute discussion utilizing the shared inquiry method, and then a final twenty minutes to share any other thoughts the article brought up for you.
Typically, selections can be investigative journalism, creative writing, personal essay or another genre, as long as it was originally published in a periodical.
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August 2026 Selection
“Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise” by David Foster Wallace
Harper’s Magazine, January 1996
One week on a cruise ship, otherwise known as a “supposedly fun thing I'll never do again,” and twenty thousand words later, we get to know how DFW really feels about this luxury experience that he absolutely does not enjoy. This piece of travel writing is a classic example of the extended literary journalism genre, and we're closing out our literary summer by puzzling over its intriguing prose and meandering footnotes.
Access options:
- Read on Gale, a library database that provides access to Harper's Magazine (SFPL card required) (this is a text-only version)
- Read on the Harper's Magazine website (personal Harper's subscription required)
- Email mnc@sfpl.org to request a PDF scanned from the library's print collection that includes the original graphics and layout
Saturday, August 29, 2026. 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
September 2026 Selection
“Silicon Valley Circuits” by Hua Hsu
Places Journal, July 2026
Hua Hsu grew up in Cupertino when Apple was just another company in an anonymous office park—which is to say, before Highway 85 transformed the southern reaches of Silicon Valley. Now, he uses the artery’s arrival to chart the development of the region, his family and himself. With the stories of so many highways being ones of displacement and inequality (see: New York, Chicago, Oakland), it’s a treat to read one that feels more like a memoir of possibility.
Access options:
- Read on the Places Journal website (free)
- Email mnc@sfpl.org to request a PDF
Saturday, September 26, 2026. 10 am - 11:30 am
October 2026 Selection (rescheduled from July)
“The Missing Person: Kafka the Tourist” by Kate Zambreno
Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2019
Judging from how Kafka talks about traveling in his diaries, he’s a frail and neurotic man urged by the obsession to write—but in this patchwork essay of tidy squares and literary headings, Zambreno associates him with photography, Paris, Lake Maggiore, art theft and historical occurrences both literally connected to his life and figuratively relevant. Does Kafka get what Kafka complains about wanting? In reconstructing Kafka’s history through her own obsessive research and placing the writer’s process within the essay itself, Zambreno presents a portrait both splintered and replete of the famous Czech author as a young man.
Access options:
- Read on the Virgina Quarterly Review website
- Read in digital replica on eLibrary, a library database (SFPL card required)
- Read on JSTOR
- Email mnc@sfpl.org to request a PDF of the article
Saturday, October 31, 2026. 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.