The Harper’s digital archive is a small and unsung national treasure, at least as far as I’m concerned; I’ve spent countless hours sifting through old issues, scanning for early work from familiar names and tracking down forgotten gems from authors whose bylines have largely faded. One such writer is Margot Hentoff, whose short story “Where Do […]
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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 inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
The Fierce and Misty Flood: Barbara Comyns on the Quiet Seduction
Barbara Comyns’s novel Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (1950) follows the doomed marriage of two young, bohemian artists during England’s Great Depression. The excerpt below is a simple, gentle seduction; I love the way in which the protagonist, Sophia, swiftly and casually dismisses her husband and her own sense of identity. The scene strikes me […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
This Is to Mother You: On Caring for a Toxic Parent in Her Greatest Time of Need
When her challenging, cancer-ridden mother suffers a psychotic break, Jane Demuth searches for the wherewithal to help the person who once demanded the most of her.
Posted inEditor's Pick
To Have and To Hold
Jill Lepore explores the privacy arguments in the Supreme Court that defined reproductive rights versus the equality arguments that defined the fight for gay marriage.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Evangelical Fervor for Amish Romance
In “More Titillated Than Thou,” Ann Neumann draws on her childhood memories of Lancaster, the findings of inspirational-lit critics, and her knowledge of evangelical purity culture.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
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. ‘They Ask for Equal Dignity in the Eyes of the Law’ (pdf) Justice Anthony Kennedy | The Supreme Court of the United States | June 26, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
A Dead Superhero Is a Marvelous Corpse
A theory of superhero suffering and death.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
A Stranger in the World: The Memoir of a Musician on Tour
The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay on DIY touring in the punk underground of the former Soviet Union.
Posted inFeature
The Life and Murder of Stella Walsh, Intersex Olympic Champion
Eighty years ago, in Berlin, Stella Walsh won her second Olympic medal. Decades later, Walsh’s murder and subsequent autopsy threw the legacy of track’s first female superstar into turmoil.
