“Tomb raiders, crooked art dealers, and museum curators fed Michael Steinhardt’s addiction to antiquities.”
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This Top 5 Is For the Birds
A tribute to our feathered friends and four more excellent, hand-picked reads.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Will Leitch, Abrahm Lustgarten, Hayley Campbell, Tony Ho Tran, and Kim Cross.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting stories from Alex Morris, Gordy Megroz, Patricia Marx, Leigh Claire La Berge, and Anne Casselman.
What a Tree—or a House—Remembers
Angelica Calabrese on family, memory, and the almond groves of Italy.
On the Hollow Highs of Hallmark Holiday Films (and More)
“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]
Award Tour (and the Week’s Top 5)
Featuring stories about celebrity look-alikes, siblings, desert living, philanthrocapitalism, and life inside a legal brothel.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Ryan Hockensmith, John Woodrow Cox, Ryan Nourai, Mary H.K. Choi, and Ferris Jabr.
Why Creative Work Still Matters and the Week’s Top 5
“The implication is that to exist within a community or to practice a craft out of passion and joy is not success. To many, maybe, that is true. But how limited is our potential, our community, our creativity when success is defined like that?” Does anyone remember that this week started out with an extra […]
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 […]


