“The problem, I realized, is that they were my trips, with Sonya accompanying me—involuntarily. I wanted this trip to be different. I wanted it to be her trip.”
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The Journalist Who the Nazis Could Not Silence
No one has ever received more nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize than Carl von Ossietzky. This is his story.
Creation of Woman: Evangelical and Transgender in the Bible Belt
How a spouse’s confession freed a young couple from gender expectations in the Deep South.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories by Jenny Kleeman, Lucy Schiller, Michael Gardner, Emily Raboteau, and Angie Martoccio.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Ed Park, Rachel Kushner, Will Tavlin, Michaela Cavanagh, and S.C. Gwynne.
Why Mother Maybelle Carter’s Work Was Never Done
“In a few years’ time, however, she became a different kind of working woman: a musician by trade and one of the hardest working women in country music.”
Tinder Hearted
An essay on the author’s “Tinder decade” — ten years spent swiping, dating, ghosting, getting ghosted, and considering how the app shapes lives: I learned to be buoyant in the face of disappointment. So many of these dates were just people plucked out of a random void and returned to that void after. The memory […]
Loneliness, Power, and the Top 5 of the Week
“Heartbreak makes for a delicious spectacle, from afar.” “I want to be left alone, but I don’t want to be lonely.” Hanif Abdurraqib writes this about a tension that dominated the career of singer Phyllis Hyman—but it also feels like a familiar plea in this dim, early-January week, when many of us leave the chaos of […]
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.
Longreads Best of 2020: Music Writing
Music has been a salve this year, helping us cope with the myriad challenges that 2020 brought. Here are some favorite pieces of music writing we picked in 2020.


