Dying Alone in Japan: The Industry Devoted to What’s Left Behind

Companies that deal with the belongings left behind after you die are in demand in Japan, “where each year more people die with no one to mourn them.”

Published: Jul 17, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,731 words)

The Fish That Gave Too Much

The history of colatura — a fermented anchovy-based sauce produced in Italy — goes back millennia. Now, overfishing and rapidly warming waters threaten its future.

Source: Hakai Magazine
Published: Jul 24, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,094 words)

Bridget Jones’s Staggeringly Outdated Diary

Nineties relationship books had some serious issues, man.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 24, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,918 words)

The Police Brutality Video That Still Haunts McKinney, Texas

Olga Khazan revisits her hometown to ask McKinney residents how they’ve been faring since a 2015 viral video captured Eric Casebolt, a white police officer, using excessive force on Dajerria Becton, a black teenager, at an unauthorized pool party. Khazan soon finds that tensions in the community are still running high three years later, and that the fallout tracks with how private club pools and homeowners’ associations have historically provided a cover for redlining.

Source: CityLab
Published: Jul 23, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,448 words)

The Gulp War

An insider look at the “Academy Awards of Water” — held in West Virginia, a state where many lack clean tap water — where judges rank the taste of a substance whose main characteristic is tastelessness.

Source: Eater
Published: Jul 24, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,532 words)

Inside the Slow-Motion Disaster on the Southern Border

One journalist speaks with immigrants to learn what life is like in the center of America’s immigration, and moral, crisis.

Source: LitHub
Published: Jul 20, 2018
Length: 19 minutes (4,867 words)

How Prisons Are Poisoning Their Inmates

“Despite resistance from activist groups, state and federal prisons continue to be built in dangerous environments that imperil the health of inmates.”

Source: The Outline
Published: Jul 23, 2018
Length: 14 minutes (3,670 words)

How to Stay Married After Your Baby is Born, or, I’m not Divorced Yet

An excerpt of “Now My Heart is Full,” Laura June’s memoir, about the challenges new parenthood placed on her and her husband — and their marriage.

Author: Laura June
Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 24, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,056 words)

Mind the Dog’s Feet

After a trip to Durban, novelist Chibundu Onuzo discovers that Nigerians are not always popular with South Africans, and that where some black South Africans see a history of oppression, Nigerians see opportunity.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 24, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,340 words)

The Woman Coming for Larry Nassar’s Job

Gymnast Selena Brennan was treated — and abused — by Larry Nasser at Michigan State for years. Today she’s studying kinesiology there, preparing to increase the representation of women doctors in gymnastics.

Source: Bleacher Report
Published: Jul 19, 2018
Length: 23 minutes (5,815 words)