The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember a longtime sheriff as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask.
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A Vaccine Dispute Turns Deadly
Misinformation’s tragic toll on one California family.
The Art of the Steal
The Social Register was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of Mayflower passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s hardest-working art thief.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Elizabeth Kolbert, Joshua Hammer, Tan Tuck Ming, Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, and Atossa Araxia Abrahamian.
A New Leaf: A Post-Legalization Cannabis Reading List
Five stories demonstrating how the green rush nurtured the best and worst that U.S. capitalism had to offer.
Sliding into the Future: A Reading List on Snowsports
Pointless elitism, or an urgent dress rehearsal for the climate crisis?
Holograms of the Holocaust (and Our Top 5)
“Over many decades, my grandmother gave responses to thousands of questions, wrote tens of thousands of words, and spoke for hours and hours while tapes rolled. She would be, in other words, the perfect candidate for AI reanimation.” In my household, the transition from summer to fall has been tough. Lately, to help my daughter […]
The Enduring Joy of Maps (and the Week’s Top 5)
“Empty spaces on maps were so terrifying to ancient mapmakers that they filled them with decorations, fictional landscapes, and monsters. We moderns miss the beautiful monsters, but what if they never actually disappeared? What if the monsters were always part of the map, part of mapping itself?” After many months of hearing about how great […]
Is the ‘Future of Food’ the Future We Want?
“The draw of a virtual restaurant is that of online shopping: The same products no matter where you are, or sometimes products exclusive to the virtual world. It’s fast food on an even grander scale.”
A Year in Reading and Our Top 5
“Some of my favorite stories this year have made me more open to new outlooks and solutions for restoring and supporting the earth. They challenge me to pay more attention to the natural world, and to remember that we’re all connected, even to the tiniest and simplest forms of life.” “One observation on its own […]


