“Tyrian purple was a difficult color to manufacture. Thousands of snails were required to create a single ounce of dye.”
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The Professor
“Maybe the most powerful person is the one who dares to refuse the gift.”
Longreads Best of 2022: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
All the stories we’ve selected as number one in our weekly Top 5 newsletter.
Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi.
How the state’s “restitution program” forces poor people to work off small debts.
The ‘Accidental Hero’ Who Saved the Internet from WannaCry
“That’s when her son came upstairs and told her, a little uncertainly, that he seemed to have stopped the worst malware attack the world had ever seen.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel Made it Okay to Write ‘Ouch’
Today’s memoirists and personal essay writers owe a debt of gratitude to the Prozac Nation author for rewriting an inhibiting rule.
Final Girl, Terrible Place
I was expecting a handy theory. What I found was a way of seeing that would help me decode a script I’d been stuck in for much of my life.
The Hare Krishnas of Coal Country
The world is full of make-believe. Some of it is sweet, some of it is sick. It persists because we have found no other antidote for pain.
How Student Debt Dragged A Generation Down — And What We Can Do About It
“A social and financial divide is forming — between those who have student debt, and those who do not — that will have ramifications for decades to come.”
