“’Will I be okay?’ my children ask me as the mass shootings in America continue. None of us like my answer.”
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Posted inNewsletter
The Uncanniest Valley (and the Rest of Our Top 5)
In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.
Posted inNewsletter
The Food of America and Our Top 5
As Thanksgiving and gluttony approach, I’ve been thinking about what foods represent America and how eating can shape a sense of identity—a theme past Longreads writers have been drawn to.
Posted inNewsletter
Bottles, Benches, and Building Connections (Plus Our Top 5)
This edition highlights reading about messages in bottles, public benches, infinity, a series of books about everything, and pay-to-play orchestras.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Corky Lee and the Work of Seeing
“Corky Lee’s images do something we do not usually imagine photographs can do. Rather than merely showing the visible, they are portraits of structural forces.”
Posted inUncategorized
Up, Up, and Away to the Week’s Top 5
“Wallace was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sort. A 54-year-old Massachusetts lawyer and real estate developer, he couldn’t afford to fly conservatively. Gas ballooning, similar to jockeyship, favored lightweight pilots, who could stock their baskets with more sand. Compared with his slighter opponents, Wallace’s six-foot-five, 240-pound frame meant that the equivalent of three additional 30-pound bags of sand […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Day One at Rikers Island
“In order to navigate the experience, you have to normalize the dehumanization. You have to buy into it in order to survive.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting stories from Alex Morris, Gordy Megroz, Patricia Marx, Leigh Claire La Berge, and Anne Casselman.
Posted inNewsletter
Award Tour (and the Week’s Top 5)
Featuring stories about celebrity look-alikes, siblings, desert living, philanthrocapitalism, and life inside a legal brothel.
Posted inNewsletter
Detectives at Work and the Week’s Top 5
“Ronald was my mother’s uncle, a fashion designer who fled Texas for New York at 19. I met him only once. In my memory, we are sitting on the front porch, the hairs standing up on my arms as the sun wanes. His head is bent over a piece of paper, sketching my 7-year-old face. […]
