“The culture of negation inspires a taste for nothingness and glorifies numbness.”
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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.
The Most Corrupt Cop in New Orleans and Our Weekly Top 5
“Murder is what landed Davis in court, but the victim wasn’t in the drug game. She was a single mother who had filed a brutality complaint against Davis. The next day, he ordered a hit man to kill her.” Congratulations, we’ve made it to the fifth month of 2024! For you, in addition to our […]
On Trees as Social Creatures and Fungi as the ‘Fabric of the Forest’
Trees were previously seen as individual and solitary organisms. But the research of Suzanne Simard shows otherwise.
What Lies Beneath Hip-Hop’s Swagger
Over the weekend, The New York Times Magazine published a twist on its annual “Songs That Matter” package: “Songs That Got Us Through It.” The newest is overall a remarkable project, stuffed with keen criticism. But Smith’s piece, which feels for the pulse of aggression in today’s and yesterday’s hip-hop, stands out — as bracing […]
Musical Rivalries and our Weekly Top 5
“Before hip-hop brought the concept of ‘beef’ into the mainstream, rock and roll’s aggression and excess resulted in many an unfriendly rivalry; decades earlier, the hard life of the traveling jazz musician led to some heady and memorable fallouts. Whether it’s pop stars, country singers, dancehall artists, or Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent multi-song war, […]
Our Top 5: Reads on the Brain, Wildfire, Power, and More
This newsletter is one of our favorite things we work on as a team: a culmination of our curation work and a show of appreciation for all the hardworking writers and journalists out there who entertain, provoke, and inform us each week. Each Top 5 also serves to chronicle what’s happening in our world at […]
Best of 2024: All Our Number One Story Picks
Every story that appeared in the number one slot in our Weekly Top 5, all in one place.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Timothy Snyder, Austin Carr, James Murdock, Myriam Lahouari, and Brian Hiatt.


