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On Teddy Roosevelt’s early life as an author, and the making of his book The Naval War of 1812: “What Roosevelt sheepishly omits is that he started working on the book just after Thanksgiving as a way to cope with a broken heart. He’d fallen head over heels for Alice Hathaway Lee, a golden-haired girl […]

Why are Republicans still fighting it? A history of the conservative strategies to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act, and what’s left in their playbook: “The right’s actuarial guerrilla war begins with the underlying reality that hardly anybody knows about the exchanges. Polls show that fewer than six in ten Americans even know the […]

David Robinson grew up in Washington D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood where young men often died in street violence. He tried to escape it, but ended up dead at 19. “His killing, still unsolved, is the story of gun violence in Washington”: “‘I told him, “Guns don’t make you a man!” I told him, “Guns make you […]

New reading list from Emily Perper featuring picks from The Morning News, Textual Relations, Full Stop, and Pacific Standard.

Zambia has no dictators, child soldiers, nor widespread occurrences of crime or violence, yet more than half its population lives on $1 per day. Why? An international development NGO worker examines the various economic drivers that is keeping Zambia poor: “Just when you think you’ve got the right narrative, another one comes bursting out of […]

Behind the scenes of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the debate over what policies and programs are effective when it comes to preventing suicide and saving lives in the U.S.: “Studies done by Columbia University’s Dr. Madelyn Gould have found that about 12 percent of suicidal callers reported in a follow-up interview that talking […]

Jon Krakauer updates the story that became Into the Wild—and the question of how Chris McCandless died in the Alaskan wilderness: “The debate over why McCandless perished, and the related question of whether he is worthy of admiration, has been smoldering, and occasionally flaring, for more than two decades now. But last December, a writer […]

A young scientist retraces the work of Edward Taylor, a prolific herpetologist (a zoologist who studies reptiles and amphibians) who also led a double life as a spy: “Taylor was called to duty again in 1944, when he was 54 and war raged in the Pacific. According to records in the US National Archives, he […]

An excerpt from the book The Faithful Executioners, by Joel F. Harrington, which was recently featured as a Longreads Member Pick. Thanks to our Longreads Members for making these stories possible—sign up to join Longreads to receive more great stories like this.  Read more from Harrington on how the book came together.

A profile of Chris Bolyard, chef de cuisine at Sidney Street Cafe in St. Louis, who works under celebrity chef Kevin Nashan: “Living outside the spotlight is nothing new for Bolyard. As the chef de cuisine of St. Louis’ Sidney Street Cafe in Benton Park, he has long worked alongside its celebrated owner and executive […]