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Editors’ Picks Features Topics Best Of 2019
Longreads
Be a Good Sport
By Soraya Roberts Feature

Competitive sports can mean professional and financial success — if they don’t compromise your mental health first. ‘Cheer’ and ‘Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez’ show how athletics can hurt as much as they can heal.

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Longreads Best of 2019

A collection of our favorite stories this year
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Remembering the Things That Remain
By Amos Barshad Feature

A Polish artist invites a journalist to dig into disturbing remnants from the Holocaust that Poland would rather keep buried.

Waiting for Alice
By Leslie Kendall Dye Feature

Nick and Nora had Asta. Why can’t we have Alice?

Whatever Happened to ______ ?
By Longreads Feature

Envy over her success led her husband, also a writer, to become violent. She fights every day for her safety — and to avoid being relegated to obscurity like so many writers who are mothers.

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The Longreads Podcast

Our new weekly podcast, dedicated to helping people find and share the best storytelling in the world.

Latest Picks

The People of Las Vegas
By Amanda Fortini  / The Believer
On the Mat We’re Briefly Perfect: On Netflix’s ‘Cheer’
By Arielle Zibrak  / avidly.lareviewofbooks.org
‘High Maintenance’ and the New TV Fantasy of New York
By Willy Staley  / The New York Times Magazine
9,008 Days
By Dylan Walsh  / Chicago Reader
The Ghost Hunter
By Leah Sottile  / The Atavist
Vivian Gornick Doesn’t Get the Hype
By Nora Caplan-Bricker  / The Cut
No One Knows Amy Sedaris Better Than Her Brother David
By David Sedaris  / Elle
Adventures in Publishing Outside the Gates
By Wendy C. Ortiz  / Gay Magazine
Question Time: My Life as a Quiz Obsessive
By Samanth Subramanian  / The Guardian
Pure Magic: The Oral History of Prince’s Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show
By Alan Siegel  / The Ringer
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Latest Posts

Sit Back, Relax, and Try Not To Think About the Hole We’re Making In Your Skull
By Michelle Weber Highlight

You can understand how the dura mater connects to the arachnoid mater, but that doesn’t mean you understand the mind.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
By Longreads Weekly Top 5

This week, we’re sharing stories from Wendy C. Ortiz, Mary South, Jeremiah Moss, Nora Caplan-Bricker, and Samanth Subramanian.

Vivian Gornick on ‘Political Activism as a Path Toward a Coherent Self’
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“But writing itself, living a life defined by work and intellect rather than love or marriage, became her primary feminist commitment.”

The Nontrivial Pursuit of Quiz Glory
By Ben Huberman Commentary

Even in the age of the search engine, the pleasure of knowing the right answer endures.

Behind the Magic: The Story of Prince’s Super Bowl Halftime Show
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“No it’s not about me. It’s about the music, it’s about this moment.”

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Please Don’t You Be My Neighbor
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“To watch those people vanish and be replaced by people who shine like glass, who cut through the sidewalks like knives but reflect nothing back, has been another scraping out. Am I still here? I don’t know anyone here anymore.”

Science Says Life is Better in Intentional Communities
By Krista Stevens Highlight

Intentional communities are a prophylactic against the plague of loneliness and a gateway to a meaningful life.

Can Japan Break Its Addiction to Disposable Packaging?
By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight

One of the most technologically advanced countries in the world pays a high ecological price for its many culinary conveniences.

At Mrs. Balbir’s
By Jillian Dunham Feature

Jillian Dunham traveled thousands of miles from home to get away from her grief. It found her anyway, in a stranger’s Bangkok apartment.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
By Longreads Weekly Top 5

This week, we’re sharing stories from Michael Barajas, Evan Ratliff, Andrew Mckirdy, Raffi Khatchadourian, and Agnes Callard.

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Popular Posts

Whatever Happened to ______ ?
By Longreads Feature

Envy over her success led her husband, also a writer, to become violent. She fights every day for her safety — and to avoid being relegated to obscurity like so many writers who are mothers.

The Disease of Deceit
By Dvora Meyers Feature

Friends don’t let friends lie about having cancer.

The God Phone
By Leora Smith Feature

What happens when ordinary people play God to strangers? Leora Smith explores the history of one of the oldest art installations at Burning Man and the conversations that unfold there.

The Price of Dominionist Theology
By Eve Ettinger Feature

After leaving fundamentalism, Eve Ettinger grapples with the loaded theological heritage of evangelical personal finance teachings.

If My Scars Could Talk
By Tega Oghenechovwen Feature

Tega Oghenechovwen contemplates the ways in which acute childhood trauma can infect and compromise relationships later in life.

The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2019
By Longreads Feature

The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.

Books

In Pocahontas County, Deep Divisions and a Gruesome Discovery
By Longreads Feature

In an excerpt from ‘The Third Rainbow Girl,’ Emma Copley Eisenberg interrogates various social conditions that might have contributed to a mysterious double murder in West Virginia in 1980.

N.K. Jemisin: ‘I am still going to write what I am going to write.’
By Krista Stevens Highlight

Hells to the yes, says I.

10 Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2020
By Longreads Feature

Stories by Edwidge Danticat, Etgar Keret, Valeria Luiselli, and more.

William Gibson on How Science Fiction Portrays Reality
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“Every fiction about the future is like an ice-cream cone,” Gibson says, “melting as it moves into the future.”

Violence Girl
By Longreads Feature

How a young bilingual Latina became one of punk’s enduring icons and helped create a new musical universe.

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Current Events

Be a Good Sport
By Soraya Roberts Feature

Competitive sports can mean professional and financial success — if they don’t compromise your mental health first. ‘Cheer’ and ‘Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez’ show how athletics can hurt as much as they can heal.

Menace Too Society
By Soraya Roberts Feature

Cancel culture suggests we can change the world from the outside in, but the misogyny and racism are coming from inside the house.

Happily Never After
By Soraya Roberts Feature

By protecting ourselves and no one else, we destroy ourselves along with everyone else.

What the World’s Most Controversial Herbicide Is Doing to Rural Argentina
By Longreads Feature

After enormous lobbying efforts, Monsanto’s GMO soybeans, treated with Roundup, became the country’s largest export, as cancer rates and other health issues skyrocketed.

Don’t Let Old Wounds Die Out
By Longreads Commentary

Our last editors’ roundtable of the season, with guest Nick Chrastil.

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Essays & Criticism

Be a Good Sport
By Soraya Roberts Feature

Competitive sports can mean professional and financial success — if they don’t compromise your mental health first. ‘Cheer’ and ‘Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez’ show how athletics can hurt as much as they can heal.

Please Don’t You Be My Neighbor
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“To watch those people vanish and be replaced by people who shine like glass, who cut through the sidewalks like knives but reflect nothing back, has been another scraping out. Am I still here? I don’t know anyone here anymore.”

Waiting for Alice
By Leslie Kendall Dye Feature

Nick and Nora had Asta. Why can’t we have Alice?

At Mrs. Balbir’s
By Jillian Dunham Feature

Jillian Dunham traveled thousands of miles from home to get away from her grief. It found her anyway, in a stranger’s Bangkok apartment.

Inking Against Invisibility
By Talia Hibbert Feature

In the face of chronic pain, invisible illness, and medical discrimination, Talia Hibbert turned to tatoos to reclaim ownership of her body.

View all
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