Recent editors’ picks

Was My Teacher Murdered?

Brenna Ehrlich | Rolling Stone | July 31, 2026 | 7,848 words

“In 2002, Leslie Buck died under mysterious circumstances in Mystic, Connecticut. Two decades later, I went back to find out who she was — and what really happened.”

Gaza’s Deadly Soil

Helen Epstein | The New York Review of Books | July 22, 2026 | 3,085 words

“Amid tight Israeli restrictions, new remote research is starting to make visible the scale of toxic fallout across the Gaza Strip.”

Meet Britain’s Hikikomori

Eve Livingston | Dispatch | July 28, 2026 | 2,498 words

“A growing number of young Brits are withdrawing from society. Some don’t leave the house for months. We met their families.”

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Elizabeth Weil | New York | July 29, 2026 | 6,808 words

“The biologist Michael Levin has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.”

This, Too, Shall Pass

Linni Kral | Taste | July 28, 2026 | 2,585 words

“Our guts have never been more optimized—but have the scat chats gone too far?”

“Protected by Ghost Town”

Hayes Davenport | L.A. Material | July 27, 2026 | 4,683 words

“A private company has cleared dozens of homeless encampments in Venice—with persistence, cash payments, and a team that includes former gang members. Clients love them. The people they move do not.”

The Beauty of a Stone Wall

Matt Seaton | The Atlantic | July 19, 2026 | 1,821 words

“Why we love them, and why I build them.”

The Return of the Monarch

Vann R. Newkirk II | The Atlantic | July 28, 2026 | 5,553 words

“After years of decline, butterfly populations are rising—for now.”

Recent editors’ picks

He’s the Last Great Land Artist You’ve Never Heard Of

Travis Diehl | The New York Times | July 22, 2026 | 2,580 words

“Charles Ross spent 50 years building ‘Star Axis,’ a naked-eye observatory in New Mexico. Now his masterwork is ready. How to share it with a changed world?”

Gassed Up

Mitch Hagney | Offrange | July 19, 2026 | 1,902 words

“Tomato ripening rooms reveal the growing costs of the produce industry’s massive consolidation.”

A Dying Art

John Semley | Harper’s Magazine | July 22, 2026 | 6,354 words

“The last of the morticians.”

Beckett the Prophet

Robert Zaretsky | The American Scholar | July 20, 2026 | 1,560 words

“We are all, it seems, still waiting for Godot.”

The Children Who Loved a Killer

Masha Hamilton | The Guardian | July 22, 2026 | 5,757 words

“The Carr family took in Steven Judy, hoping to ‘save’ a troubled teen. They didn’t know he would become one of the most hated men in America.”

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