Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Ghosts of Greenwood Nikole Hannah-Jones | ProPublica | July 8, 2014 | 27 minutes (6,891 words) words) “Freedom Summer baptized Mississippi as […]
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How To Not Seem Rich While Running For Office
A new generation of entitled politicians may not have struggled much. So they’re stealing from their elders. Candidates have been spinning Horatio Alger stories since the days of Horatio himself, or probably even the days of Great-Great-Grandpa Alger, who for all we know worked his nails to the nub scrubbing the decks of the Mayflower. […]
Writing, Depression and Learning How to Handle Attention: A Conversation with Allie Brosh
An interview with the blogger behind Hyperbole and a Half (and a new book of the same name) on narcissism, the Internet, and coping with depression: I haven’t always had depression. I talked to a few of my friends who knew me when I was in high school, and it was sort of this tragic/hilarious […]
The Missing History of Ravensbrück, The Nazi Concentration Camp for Women
The story of the Nazis’ only concentration camp for women has long been obscured—partly by chance, but also by historians’ apathy towards women’s history. Sarah Helm writes about the camp, where the “cream of Europe’s women” were interned alongside its prostitutes, and members of the French resistance perished alongside Red Army prisoners of war.
Longreads Best of 2014: Here Are All of Our No. 1 Story Picks from This Year
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2014. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email. If you like these, you can sign up to receive our free weekly email every Friday. * * * I Smoked Pot with […]
The King’s Last Game
Elvis Presley and I had at least one thing in common: A love of racquetball.
The Art of Authenticity: A Conversation with PostSecret’s Frank Warren
“I feel like PostSecret is almost like an anti-Facebook. It’s the true story that you would normally never share in a public arena.”
‘It’s not too much of a stretch to say that this story fundamentally changed me as a person’
All reporters have pieces that stay with them, stories whose characters and components linger long after the last revisions have been rendered and the paper put to bed. For Jennifer Mendelsohn, Sean Bryant was that character. Mendelsohn first encountered Sean Bryant shortly after his death, nearly two decades ago. Transfixed by his short, vivid life and subsequent suicide, […]
Naked, Covered in Ram’s Blood, Drinking a Coke, and Feeling Pretty Good
An exploration of the way other cultures treat depression: And I said, “Oh! What an interesting idea. Well, um, yes, sure. Yeah, absolutely, yes, let’s do that. I’ll have an ndeup.” “Oh, well, that’s great,” she said. And she gave us some fairly basic instructions, and then we left. And my translator, the aforementioned then-girlfriend, […]
'Understand Your Enemy': What It Feels Like to Be Depressed
“It always helps to understand what’s happening, and to be able to understand your enemy. It helps you cope and helps you panic less. Now that I know what depression looks like and I know what the general steps are, there’s also a progression I can look at and feel comforted by. I can feel […]

