“I came to a shack with a small, white-haired man inside. I assumed he had been guarding Devil’s Bridge for centuries. I answered his riddles three and he gestured for me to sign in. At the end of his hand was a damp pile of papers and a pen on a gray string. Like most […]
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Pieces from Benji Jones, Howard Bryant, Carey Baraka, Sally Jenkins, and Jeannette Cooperman.
Brains, Bonobos, and the Top 5 Reads of the Week
“Your doctors tell you that you have your whole life to recover, but also that you have a window of just six months when your brain is most primed to relearn everything you’ve forgotten. So, no pressure. Your brain can’t regenerate the neurons it’s lost. Use ’em or lose ’em. You had no idea your […]
40 Days in a Jungle and Our Top 5
“The skies were blue that day, and there was a light wind. For around half an hour all was well. But as the Cessna approached Caquetá, a Colombian department that contains one of the densest, wettest, most remote corners of the Amazon, something went wrong.” Pat yourselves on the back: you’ve made it through January. […]
A Couple’s Awakening and the Week’s Top 5
“Both marriage and religion had required exile from ourselves, a systematic suppression of our true identities. It was an adaptation that felt necessary for survival. But as I watched D explore, interrogate, and reinvent womanhood, changing the rules before my eyes, I wondered if I had been wrong.” Happy Friday, even if (in the Northern […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Gus Garcia-Roberts and David Heath, Melissa Gira Grant, David Owen, Geoffrey Himes, and Traci Brimhall.
Living in New York’s Unloved Neighborhood
“But the neighborhood used to feel to me like a rough part of a softer place, and nowadays the roughness feels more general, and this makes it harder to cheer for a neighborhood that is so loud and dirty and uninterested in or unfit for human life.”
Our 500th Edition! (And the Week’s Top 5)
“The alchemy between rescuer and rescued is strange: like a romantic relationship, only faster moving. The euphoria of starting simply at hello, I’m here to help before moving on and culminating at what feels like deep attachment.” We may be happy that this is the final newsletter of January (come on, spring!), but we’re thrilled that it’s […]
In Living Color: A Prismatic Reading List on Pigment, Paint, and Perception
Six stories celebrating color in all its beauty.
Best of 2023: All of Our Number One Story Picks
Every piece we selected as our top story of the week in 2023, all in one place.


