7 Stories to read this weekend

It is a long long weekend here in the United States, thanks to our independence day (July 4th.) But that doesn’t mean I am not going to do my job and bring you some of the best stuff I have read in recent days. So here are my picks for this weekend’s reading.

• An interview with Jonathan Franzen in the Paris Review. I have only recently discovered his work and well, this interview captures a lot of his personality that shows up in the book.
• The end of car culture by Elisabeth Rosenthal is one of those pieces that just sticks in your head. You don’t know why, but you keep thinking about it.
• The body data craze. The big mainstream magazine (Newsweek) does a great job of explaining the current Silicon Valley madness in very human terms.
• Liquid City — New York, that is. New York Magazine article is just fantastic.
• Where Don Draper ends, DB Cooper begins. For all of you who are missing Mad Men already, Lindsey Green has a lot to say.
• An idea whose time has come. How the office space is being reinvented for the 21st century. [Metropolis]
• The unexpected success of Boeing 747. I have always wondered about that and am actually glad someone has finally explained this to me.