Automattic

A visit to “Tokyo’s first co-sleeping café” where clients pay to sleep next to women or pay for “options” like being patted on the head: “Did he get any of the options?’ “‘He wanted five-second hug option.’ “‘How much does that cost?’ “‘Sen yen.’ A thousand yen. “‘What was it like?’ “She mimed wrapping her […]

New reading list from Emily Perper featuring picks from The New Yorker, Aeon Magazine, and the New Inquiry.

A former USAID employee starts a list and a campaign to help resettle hundreds of Iraqis whose lives were threatened for working with the U.S. coalition. An excerpt from Kirk Johnson’s book To Be a Friend Is Fatal: “I returned to Boston to find a dozen voicemails from journalists and Capitol Hill staffers whose names […]

An exhaustive, 22,000-word account of Marissa Mayer’s rise from a focused student in Wausau, Wis. to Yahoo! CEO. Carlson goes back to her childhood to explore the traits that made her so successful at Stanford and Google, and he goes behind the scenes on the Yahoo! board’s decision to choose her over interim CEO Ross […]

On being young and transgender: “At thirteen, Skylar was browsing at Barnes & Noble and came across the young-adult novel ‘Parrotfish,’ by Ellen Wittlinger, which, along with books like ‘Luna’ and ‘I Am J,’ is a touchstone for trans kids. ‘Parrotfish’ is the story of Grady—born Angela—who realizes by page 9 that ‘inside the body […]

“I feel dizzy, exalted: recognized.” Terry Castle begins to make peace with her mother and finds joy in the experience of being married in a country where it is finally legal: “But I’m nearly sixty and there’s something to be said for advancing senescence. Maybe things don’t hurt quite as much? (Blakey just came in […]

The dark history of ceramic figurines. The Staffordshire pottery created more than 200 years ago included graphic and risqué images and scenes from the time: “After 1840, a growing number of middle- and lower-class homes wanted these figures, so they had to be made more cheaply. And with the Industrial Revolution, this was now possible. […]

Current and former cast members of Saturday Night Live—and one who didn’t make it—reflect on what it’s like to audition for Lorne Michaels: “Marc Maron: I think I was a little high on pot. There were some pictures facing [Mr. Michaels], and in front of the pictures was a bowl of candy. It was all […]

This week’s Member Pick is from a brand new publication, The New New South, which has just published a new ebook by Belle Boggs, who’s been featured on Longreads in the past for pieces including 2012’s “The Art of Waiting.” Her latest, “For the Public Good,” looks at forced sterilizations that occurred in the United States and the […]

On the life and death of a haunted journalist. The tragic death of Michael Hastings also gave birth to a number of conspiracy theories: “Hastings never identified himself in his writing as someone suffering from PTSD. The closest he came to such an admission was in May, when he retweeted an article about using pot […]