“About 26 billion chickens occupy Earth, but apart from the lucky ones in backyards, most are condemned to the hellscape that is industrial farming.”
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Pity the Barefoot Pigeon
“Bumblefoot, string-foot, and falcons are just a few of the hazards that New York’s birds have to brave.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending excellent stories by Clint Rainey, Blythe Roberson, Mya Frazier, Katy Kelleher, and Jasper Nathaniel.
Posted inUncategorized
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
Posted inNonfiction
Snapshot of Canada: An Accidental Reading List
An incomplete portrait of a nation emerges from a stash of old print magazines.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Day the Great Plains Burned
Ian Frazier, author of the classic book The Great Plains, takes a close look at the catastrophic fires that devastated huge swathes of Kansas and Oklahoma due, in part, to climate change.
Posted inNonfiction
Truly Seeing the River: An Interview with Writer Boyce Upholt
Writing about the culture and beauty of the Mississippi Delta requires seeing the mighty river as more than a line of water.
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
Riding the Rails: Celebrating Trains and Subway Commuter Life
My other half Rebekah and I recently returned from Japan, and we’re in that rapture phase where you wish the things you loved overseas were also available in America. I already miss the 24-hour action of Japanese cities, their automated restaurants, the street-side vending machines — and public transportation. In Japan, trains run on time. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
In Honor of National Grammar Day: What It Was Like to Copy-Edit Pauline Kael
When Pauline Kael typed “prevert” instead of “pervert,” she meant “prevert” (unless she was reviewing something by Jacques Prévert). Luckily, she was kind, and if you changed it she would just change it back and stet it without upbraiding you. Kael revised up until closing, and though we lackeys resented writers who kept changing “doughnut” to “coffee cake” then back to “doughnut” and then “coffee cake” again, because it meant more work for us, Kael’s changes were always improvements.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last Days of Stealhead Joe
The life and death of a fly-fishing guide. Ian Frazier went fishing with Joseph Adam Randolph, aka “Stealhead Joe,” two months before he took his own life: “Alex Gonsiewski, a highly regarded young guide on the river, who works for John Hazel, said that Joe taught him most of what he knows. When Gonsiewski took […]
