“The first shock was the sheer discovery of a book about my mother and my family, which had information about me and my identity that had been kept hidden from me,” Teege says. “I knew almost nothing about the life of my biological mother, nor did my adoptive family. I hoped to find answers to questions that had disturbed me and to the depression I had suffered from. The second shock was the information about my grandfather’s deeds.”
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Posted inNonfiction
Borges and $: The Parable of the Literary Master and the Coin
Thirty years ago, the world lost a great literary mind—the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. Today, Elizabeth Hyde Stevens revisits the financial conditions that produced this life of pure literature, finding unexpected hope in the darkest period of Borges’ forgotten past.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Anxiety, Depression and OCD: Inside America's Zoos
Zoos contact Virga when animals develop difficulties that vets and keepers cannot address, and he is expected to produce tangible, observable results. Often, the animals suffer from afflictions that haven’t been documented in the wild and appear uncomfortably close to our own: He has treated severely depressed snow leopards, brown bears with obsessive-compulsive disorder and […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
When the Messiah Came to America, She Was a Woman
On the rise and fall of American utopia.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our favorite stories of the week, featuring, Seattle Met, London Review of Books, More Intelligent Life, Mother Jones, and Matter.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Invisible Hand: Who Was Adam Smith?
In a recent essay for Adbusters, Douglas Haddow posited that algorithms are the new “invisible hand” guiding our capitalist system. But before Haddow got to that conclusion, he explored the original idea of the invisible hand, and the man behind the phrase: If we want to interrogate the true nature of these numbers, the wizard […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Anxiety, Depression and OCD: Treating the Animals Inside America’s Zoos
Halberstadt meets Dr. Vint Virga and explores the scientific research into the feelings of animals. “He has treated severely depressed snow leopards, brown bears with obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobic zebras. ‘Scientists often say that we don’t know what animals feel because they can’t speak to us and can’t report their inner states,’ Virga told me. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Inscrutable Tragedy of Reetika Vazirani
Why did a talented, generous, brilliant poet destroy herself and the person she loved most in the world?
Posted inNonfiction
How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine)
The end of divine rule in postwar Japan, and the absolute power of General MacArthur.
