Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
* * *
1. Unclimbable
Eva Holland | SB Nation | May 21, 2015 | 31 minutes (7,907 words)
Eva Holland explores what it means to comprehend and embrace your limits —to know yet avoid the precipice between courage and humility—on a climbing expedition to the Yukon Territories’ famed Cirque of the Unclimbables.
2. Ghost Workers
Amy Maxmen | Newsweek Europe | May 19, 2015 | 22 minutes (5,540 words)
Despite being hailed internationally as heroes, frontline health workers have been sidelined in the 3.3 billion dollar fight against Ebola.
3. ISIS and the Shia Revival in Iraq
Nicolas Pelham | New York Review of Books | May 20, 2015 | 16 minutes (4,245 words)
Nicolas Pelham in Iraq, on the destruction of antiquities by ISIS, and the reality of life in Baghdad right now.
4. Why Are Palo Alto’s Kids Killing Themselves?
Diana Kapp | San Francisco Magazine | May 15, 2015 | 24 minutes (6,095 words)
Two recent suicide clusters by high school students have rocked a community in Palo Alto, a San Francisco Bay area city. Diane Kapp talks to students, family members, psychiatrists, and community leaders to get a sense of why the suicides occurred and what’s being done to prevent them.
5. Can Racism Be Stopped in the Third Grade?
Lisa Miller | New York Magazine | May 19, 2015 | 27 minutes (6,849 words)
A controversial experiment at Fieldston Lower School to open up a discussion about race by sorting students into racial groups has divided a group of liberal parents.
Get the Longreads Weekly Email