The merchants of Haight-Ashbury advertised a summer of free food, free lodging, and free love. What they got instead was a civic nightmare.
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How Does It Feel? An Alternative American History, Told With Folk Music
On Guthrie, Robeson, Seeger, Lomax, Dylan, the Red Scare, the fall of labor, and what folk music had to do with it.
The Truth About Writing Fiction From Your Life
A conversation about writing novels that have roots in reality.
The Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval
Hunter-gatherers tended to think of pets as part of the family, and so do we. But in other time periods, intimacy with animals has been more taboo.
The Problem of Pain
Pain is indeed inherited, but treating it as an affliction need not be handed down from generation to generation.
The Writers’ Roundtable: Fiction vs. Nonfiction
A conversation between writers Eva Holland, Benjamin Percy, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Mary H.K. Choi, and Adam Sternbergh about writing on both sides of the fiction-nonfiction divide.
Another Tech Casualty: Dating
“I’ve lived in Seattle for seven years, single most of them. The only thing that has changed is the increase in men I’d never want to go out on a date with.”
How We Got There from Here
Anna Armstrong recalls a road trip to escape her grief-stricken home — dragging her 13-year-old brother to see R.E.M.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our top stories of the week, as chosen by the editors at Longreads.
Percy Ross Wants to Give You Money!
He was was a self-made, blue-collar millionaire in Reagan’s America. But when Percy Ross decided to give away his fortune, he made things simple: all you had to do was ask for it.

