Editor’s Pick

Buoyed by marriage equality victories on the coasts, same-sex couples are fighting for equality rights in the South: “Not only are gay couples in Mississippi not allowed to marry, they cannot legally adopt — even though a quarter of same-sex couples here are raising children together, the highest percentage of any state, according to the […]

On Frida Kahlo’s friendship with Leo Eloesser, a noted surgeon who gave her advice throughout her life: “He followed up with a letter addressing the root cause of her suffering: ‘Diego loves you very much, and you love him.’ Acknowledging that Rivera ‘has never been, nor ever will be, monogamous,’ he went on to propose […]

Our world is increasingly automated, so what exactly will drive our economy, our jobs, and consumer demand into the next century? “We live like gods, and we don’t even know it. “We fly across oceans in airplanes, we eat tropical fruit in December, we have machines that sing us songs, clean our house, take pictures […]

The writer investigates the financial realities of attending culinary school, and the hard life of a working chef: “Chef Brad Spence wouldn’t go culinary school if he had to do it all over again. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, the chef/partner of Philadelphia’s Amis moved to New York City, […]

How community members like Cynthia Mendenhall, a former gang member, have teamed up with police and other leaders to negotiate peace in L.A.’s toughest neighborhoods: “Causality is slippery, especially when it comes to crime. The L.A.P.D.’s decision to deploy 30 additional officers to Watts’s three largest housing projects has undoubtedly contributed to the area’s improvement. […]

For this week’s Longreads Member Pick (sign up here to receive it), we’re excited to share an excerpt from The Faithful Executioner, a book by Joel F. Harrington, Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, published this year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The beloved author on her work, early battles with school censorship, and whether she ever felt pressure to tone down the topics addressed in her books for young adults: “I read that you voluntarily removed a scene about masturbation from the original manuscript of Tiger Eyes. The movie seems to restore this scene in a […]

The writer investigates the killing of migrating songbirds in the Mediterranean and why there is little being done to prevent hunters from shooting the birds for sport: “‘It’s become fashionable, and my friends talked me into it,’ the hunter explained to me, somewhat sheepishly. ‘I’m not a real hunter—you can’t become a hunter at 40. […]

Can one find clarity at a Kundalini Yoga retreat? A first-person account from the Summer Solstice Sadhana Celebration: “Japji was written sometime in the 16th century by Guru Nanak, the first of the ten Sikh gurus. It was written in Gurmukhi. It takes about twenty minutes to recite and what it mostly says is A. […]