Mass Extinction: The Early Years
An excerpt from Extinction: A Radical History, by Ashley Dawson, who argues that contemporary mass extinction is a result of the excesses of the capitalist system.
What It’s Like to Grow Up Gay in Russia
For this week’s Longreads Member Pick we are proud to feature a chapter from Gay Propaganda, a new collection of original stories, interviews and testimonials from LGBT Russians both living there and in exile. The book was edited by Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon, and will be published by OR Books in February. We’d like to thank them for sharing this chapter with Longreads Members.
Read a free excerpt, and become a Longreads Member to receive the full story and support our service. You can also buy Longreads Gift Memberships to send this and other great stories to friends, family or colleagues.
Excerpt: The Dream of Doctor Bantam
[Fiction] Julie goes on a midnight ride with her big sister:
“When Tabitha Thatch argued, her little sister Julie always thought about cats. It was rare that Tabitha argued, much more common that she agreed to rules or demands her mother or the world imposed on her, then did the opposite of what she’d agreed to, but when she did argue her jaw relaxed open and her voice, high-pitched and ragged, folded in on itself in a hundred tissue paper layers of connotation, implication, meaning, all of her yowling protest in way you couldn’t ignore. You could listen to Tabitha arguing like a cat for hours; Julie—her own voice like a dog’s, she thought, short and hoarse and barky—had listened to Tabitha for hours. You could listen and you would be struck by how raw and vibrant that voice was, but then you’d realize that Tabitha was just saying she was going to go to the mall and buy Adderall swallow it with beer, then hang around the food court talking about the Misfits with some college kid. In a raw and vibrant and catlike way she’d tell you that and you would believe in her.
“Linda, Tabitha and Julie’s mother, had never been vulnerable to Tabitha’s voice, and Julie had always hated Linda a little for that.”