Mirrors are sparkly and shiny and hypnotic. They’ve fascinated us for thousands of years. And they might show us a lot more about our society’s misplaced priorities than we care to see.
Search results
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Justin Heckert, Hannah Louise Poston, Anne Helen Petersen, Jiayang Fan, and Rachel Greenwald Smith.
Posted inEditor's Pick
What Happens If China Makes First Contact?
The Atlantic‘s Ross Andersen travels to China to visit the world’s largest radio dish built for seeking out extraterrestrial intelligence. On the trip he meets Liu Cixin, China’s preeminent science-fiction writer, for a wide-ranging discussion about the risks of making contact.
Posted inNonfiction
The Christmas Tape
Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Story
American Dirt: A Bridge to Nowhere
“Jeanine Cummins can write about Mexico — but she will be judged on whether her writing actually captures the experiential and emotional and ethical complexity of that place, and she will be judged with extra care because she is an outsider.”
Posted inNonfiction
Total Depravity: The Origins of the Drug Epidemic in Appalachia Laid Bare
In an excerpt from his essay collection, Australian journalist Richard Cooke reports on the American opioid crisis through the astonished eyes of a foreigner visiting steel and coal country.
Posted inFood, History, Quotes, Science & Nature
Just Try It, You’ll Like It, It’s Good for You
Remember when you could only buy milk that came from cows and goats, rather than nuts and seeds? We live in a post-dairy world now, and soy milk started it all.
Posted inNonfiction
An Ocean Away From the Sanctuary of Manhattan, Signs of Peaceful Coexistence
As a Jewish New Yorker, Candy Schulman is surprised to find a small town in Andalusia celebrating the coexistence of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures, despite the area’s dark racist history.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
A Girl’s Guide to Missiles
A professor returns to the California military base where she grew up to make sense of her family’s role developing weapons for the US government.
Posted inFeature, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
The Poke Paradox
Where culinary bliss meets environmental peril, and how to solve America’s poke problem.
