Here’s a selection of profiles that resonated with us this year.
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
Plastic’s Broken Promise
“The first one I saw was on the path outside my house: a single white plastic glove, the fingers curled inward like a sleeping animal.”
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2020: Arts and Culture
Our top editors’ picks in arts and culture writing this year.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
“Over a Glass of Wine and a Pint on a Quiet Friday Night”
“Impending parenthood makes you reconsider the context of your own upbringing, and puts the work your parents did into a new light.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
The Dark Side of Birding
“Undeniably, eBird … brings birders together and allows for rapid information sharing. It’s also created new—and sometimes contentious—etiquette and social dynamics.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Nonfiction, Writing
Loving Molly, and Mourning Her: A Husband’s Extraordinary Essay
Blake Butler writes movingly about his late wife, poet Molly Brodak.
Posted inStory
Longreads Best of 2020: Music Writing
Music has been a salve this year, helping us cope with the myriad challenges that 2020 brought. Here are some favorite pieces of music writing we picked in 2020.
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
A Fond Farewell to a Friend: the Arecibo Telescope
“Exploring the cosmos is a way for us to know ourselves. Each time we look up, in some way we are making contact with each other, with our past, present, and future.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘Transforming Craft Into An Act of Protest’: Embroidery In Response to Femicide in Mexico
An embroidery collective in Mexico sews the stories of slain women.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Electric Guitar Pioneer
“She wielded her guitar like a weapon and distorted the sound: a guitar technique that was completely original at the time and would be copied by legions of rock guitarists in the decades after.”