Recommending stories from Emily Bazelon, Eva Holland, Kevin Pang, Jessica Traynor, and David Pierce.
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This Week: Rituals, Emoji, and a Cold Case
“Ritual is an urge and an act; it’s an aesthetic gesture. As an adult I established the habit of turning my attention to those subtle seasonal details and recording them. I was loving and honoring the land, but this practice still left something undone. A certain clarity, maybe formality. Something like a frame around a […]
Happy Birthday to Us, and the Week’s Top 5
“The anxiety of hunger settled under my ribs like the feeling you get when you’re about to burst into tears. The hum of the refrigerator alone was enough to make me want to bury my head in the backyard. I often dreamt of donuts, and once, of my sister-in-law’s mother, a tenacious Serbian woman, bringing […]
Brains, Bonobos, and the Top 5 Reads of the Week
“Your doctors tell you that you have your whole life to recover, but also that you have a window of just six months when your brain is most primed to relearn everything you’ve forgotten. So, no pressure. Your brain can’t regenerate the neurons it’s lost. Use ’em or lose ’em. You had no idea your […]
Is Kanoa Igarashi the LeBron of Surfing?
“Born in Surf City USA, and the descendant of an actual samurai, Japan’s surfing superstar is ready for the sport’s debut on the world stage.”
A Dangerous Solo Hike, the Vanishing of Aging Parents, and Our Top 5
“I came to a shack with a small, white-haired man inside. I assumed he had been guarding Devil’s Bridge for centuries. I answered his riddles three and he gestured for me to sign in. At the end of his hand was a damp pile of papers and a pen on a gray string. Like most […]
Eight Limes, No More: The Accidental Poetry of Found Lists
A found list is a rare analog window into someone else’s needs—an accidental autobiography, a blank space to be filled with one’s imagination.
The Rise of Women Butchers, Six Reads on the Single Life, and Our Top 5
“But I’m the only woman in the classroom, and it has become absolutely essential that I do not gag. Although the number of women apprentices had been creeping up over the years, from the get-go, as a woman studying butchery, I am still a novelty.” Food writer and chef Olivia Potts, the author of “Life […]
Japan’s Lonely Cherry Blossoms
Millions of people turn out to see Japan’s famous sakura blossoms. This year, Covid-19 kept the usual crowds at home, though the blossom makes a fitting metaphor for evanescence.
Bomb the Multiplex: A ‘Barbenheimer’ Reading List
“With people turning a shared release date into a meme-fueled double feature, we rounded up our favorite reads about 2023’s oddest duo.”


