Seven essays that go beyond the box score.
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Posted inUncategorized
A New Series, An Unknown History, and the Week’s top 5
“Minstrelsy shows you one hand, convinces you of one thing—the thing you can see most vividly—while something else works behind the scenes. That something is something only those who are tapped into a specific kind of pain, a specific kind of quest for freedom that has failed before but is not worth abandoning, might understand.” […]
Posted inUncategorized
Holding Space, Internet Community, and Our Top 5
“I think of Tomm every time the sunlight shines on R’s face. He is not Tomm’s replacement and Tomm is not his shadow. My son has added to the pile of glimmers that make me remember my brother.” Author Maria Zorn and I share one thing in common: We both lost our brothers unexpectedly. Grief […]
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting stories from a collection of pro-Palestine student protesters, Chloé Cooper Jones, Nick Bowlin, Bathsheba Demuth, and Joshua Rigsby.
Posted inNewsletter
Our Attraction to Disaster and the Week’s Top 5
“Deep in the valley below us, in the middle distance, gaped the great black cauldron of Litli-Hrútur, its insides awash in a churning fiery stew. We stood in silence on the observation mound with our hands on our hips, faces cast in childish masks of wonder and awe.” Last week, I hit the natural hazard […]
Posted inNonfiction
Anatomy of Absolute Power
The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember a longtime sheriff as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask.
Posted inUncategorized
The Plot Thickens (and the Week’s Top 5)
“Accommodating the dead, like accommodating the living, has always entailed a head-on collision with the awkward reality that we have a finite amount of physical space.” Okay, yes, sure, maybe you weren’t expecting a quote about dead bodies to kick off your Friday morning. But I assure you that our new feature, “Disneyland of the […]
Posted inCuration
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition, we recommend stories from Eli Saslow, Mitchell S. Jackson, Adam Ciralsky, Heidi Lasher, and Noah Rawlings.
Posted inFeature
A Year in Reading: The Dark Side of Progress
We’re moving farther, faster, than ever before. But we’re also destabilizing crucial areas of human experience.
Posted inUncategorized
The (Un-)Happiest Place on Earth and the Week’s Top 5
“I left Trip House at 8:12 on Saturday morning, having not been murdered, and drove to the Magic Kingdom. The woman at the ticket window asked if I’d come to Disney World to celebrate anything special, and I laughed. If I answered that question truthfully — using unmagical words like ‘genital,’ ‘student loan,’ and ‘gentrification’ […]
