“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
As January draws to a close, our favorite stories this week included a stirring critical essay, a paean to the world’s greatest boxed meal, a rethinking of psychedelics’ impact on the planet, a profile of a craftsperson at his peak, and an eye-opener about how humpback whales use air in some unexpected ways. 1. Corky […]
The Unappreciated Blog, Ghost Stories, and our Top 5
“To watch any ghost story set in a city like New York requires this kind of sensitivity, an awareness that every building is haunted, and that these hauntings happen in layers: as much as each generation tries to wipe out the traces of those who’ve come before, those memories are always there.” As we approach […]
All the Stories Nominated for the 2022 National Magazine Awards
Consider this your reading list for the next few weeks.
A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another: Rethinking “Spy vs. Spy”
The iconic comic strip may seem simple, but its central metaphor has proven impossible to replicate.
Bad Blood (Longreads’ Version): A Musical Feuds Reading List
Whether competition between artists or strife within a band, popular music features some of pop culture’s messiest rivalries.
A “Super” Walk of Contradictions (and Our Top 5)
“To my right is one of the largest manmade toxic holes on Earth. To my left, shelves of coal-colored slag piled twenty feet high. And underfoot, ten thousand miles of poisoned shafts swimming with ghosts.” Hello from Berkeley, California. Our family loves to explore the city’s parks, where we can hike through redwood forests in […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week’s edition highlights stories by Bench Ansfield, Justin A. Davis, Wright Thompson, Lucy Jones, and April Nowell.


