This Is Living — an Exclusive from Loitering: New & Collected Essays by Charles D’Ambrosio
How burdens and values pass from fathers to sons, and the search for that one true thing.
My hand will always remember the density of those silver dollars, the dead weight as I tumbled them back and forth, the dull clink as the coins touched. The nature of that weight offered a lesson in value too; you knew by a sense of the coin’s unique inner gravity that the silver was pure, that it wasn’t an alloy. Holding the coin in your palm you felt the primitive allure of the metal itself, its truth.
Pious Fraud
How Lothar Malskat crossed the line that separates art restoration from forgery in a bombed-out church in wartime Germany.
When Mary Martin Was the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up
In the 1950s, a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin became a sensation, attracting the fourth biggest audience of all time for a scripted TV show when a live production was broadcast on NBC.
The Man Who Fell to Earth
A profile of wingsuit pilot Joby Ogwyn, who has climbed Earth’s highest summits and flown off of them. Ogwyn was set to climb and jump off Mount Everest for the Discovery Channel, but then tragedy stuck, killing most of his crew.
Inconspicuous Consumption
Natalie Shure contracted a serious strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis while volunteering for the Peace Corps in Ukraine. This essay pairs her personal experience—months of quarantine and chemo—with an investigation into the disease’s history, modern politics and ways in which worldwide treatment programs fail patients.
The Limits of Jurisdiction
Kidnapping, adoption fraud and the battle over a little girl known as Karen to her adoptive parents in Missouri and Anyelí to the Guatemalan couple who are convinced that she is their kidnapped daughter.
Longreads Best of 2014: Here Are All of Our No. 1 Story Picks from This Year
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2014. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
In Conversation: Chris Rock
Things discussed with the comedian: if the Obama presidency is a disappointment; the difficulty of workshopping stand-up material in the age of social media; Ferguson and the lack of black leaders.
My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK
A college professor on race, prejudice and making his way in the world.
Sci-Fi Is for Everyone: Six Stories About Marginalized Groups in Science Fiction
“I’ve included essays about women in sci-fi, as well as queer representation in the genre, because it’s a thrill to see traditionally marginalized groups take on a genre that has so much to offer them. Sci-fi should be for everyone.”
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