“Trevor spoke to Doug…“Physically, I’m doing fine,” he said. ‘My body’s just tired because we’ve been doing 20-mile days for eight days in a row.’ It was their final conversation.”
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Stories of Quarantine and Upheaval: A Reading List on the Power of Personal Narrative
During times of isolation and dramatic change, our stories from around the world are an essential global historical record.
Burgling the Rich, a Cat’s Life Lessons, and Our Top 5
“I learned to adore the way he sidled against me and to hate his momentary affection, just as he learned to detach from me in weariness and depend on me in hunger. Days with him were a quick education in a cat’s existence.” I once spent a year shadowing a musician I loved, whose body […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we feature stories from Tom Scocca, Giles Harvey, Chris Walker, Krithika Varagur, and N.C. Happe.
The Toll of War and the Week’s Top 5
“Tesfaye wan’t sure where the gunfire was coming from, and with service outages across Mekelle, he couldn’t look online for answers. He was certain something was very wrong. But what could he do? He got dressed and did what he did most mornings. He went to work.” Every month, we share an excerpt from our […]
Chaos and Cosmic Order: The Year of the Dragon
Grace Loh Prasad on trying to make it home in time for Lunar New Year.
Inequality’s Deadly Toll
“A century of research has demonstrated how poverty and discrimination drive disease. Can COVID push science to finally address the issue?”
The Very Public Library, Food as Fuel, and Our Top 5
“It’s our least popular and most enforced rule: we don’t allow people to sleep in the library. We know you’re tired, we know it’s warm, we know it feels safe. But someone who is dying also looks like someone who is sleeping, and we’ve all seen our share of overdoses. Also, if one person is […]
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
Learning to Walk Again (and Our Top 5)
“The average U.S. public school has about 550 students. Imagine eight or nine schools in an area roughly the size of Philadelphia where every kid is missing at least one limb. Imagine also that their amputations happened alongside a torrent of other tragedies: the loss of family members, friends, neighbors, schools, houses.” In the latest issue of […]


