Recent editors’ picks

Submitting to the Beast

Todd Kliman | Oxford American | April 14, 2026 | 5,995 words

“A father and son in New Orleans—feasting and flaneuring.”

The Feeding

Lisa Glatt | The Sun Magazine | May 31, 2026 | 2,856 words

“My mom and I lived together for five years—the breast cancer years—until she died from the disease.”

In the Reality Lab

Max Callimanopulos | n+1 | June 4, 2026 | 2,726 words

“Your body’s data was only valuable once.”

The End of Books

Sheila Liming | The Yale Review | May 26, 2026 | 2,869 words

“What happened when a dumpster arrived behind my university’s library.”

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Stories from Mina Tavakoli, Lindsey Adler, Joshua Jackson, Ben Tarnoff, Paloma Karr, and Jon Greenaway.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Recommending notable reads by Lauren Collins, Gabrielle Bruney, Gregory Barber, Sally O’Reilly, and Jeffrey Arlo Brown.

Recent editors’ picks

The Last Straw

Rukmini Callimachi | The New York Times | June 3, 2026 | 1,590 words

“Inside the tiny community of English master thatchers, a fight is unfolding over a tradition that may not survive.”

Losing Paradise

Carlyle Calhoun and James Collier | Southlands and RE:PUBLIC | May 12, 2026 | 4,209 words

“As rising seas swallow Louisiana’s marshes, oil companies are pretending nothing has changed — and that now floatable, fishable waters remain their private property.”

The Paperboy’s Secret

Peter Hessler | The New Yorker | May 31, 2026 | 10,531 words

“In boyhood, guilt was a constant companion. I stopped mentioning the quarters that Mr. Wood put into my pocket.”

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?

Claire L. Evans | Quanta Magazine | June 5, 2026 | 3,103 words

“In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation.”

The Inside Story of the Athens Music Scene

Tommy Tomlinson | Garden & Gun | June 1, 2026 | 5,453 words

“How did the college football town spawn the B-52s, R.E.M., and Widespread Panic, to name just a few? The maestros and misfits who led Athens’s rise to one of the world’s most influential and improbable music towns tell all.”

Art for Our Sakes

Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books | May 21, 2026 | 2,358 words

“Why should we go on making things?”

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