“In order to navigate the experience, you have to normalize the dehumanization. You have to buy into it in order to survive.”
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting stories from Alex Morris, Gordy Megroz, Patricia Marx, Leigh Claire La Berge, and Anne Casselman.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Will Leitch, Abrahm Lustgarten, Hayley Campbell, Tony Ho Tran, and Kim Cross.
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 […]
The Making of a Monster
“Centuries ago it was an idyllic earthen path. Today’s it’s the most dangerous road for cyclists in America.”
The Marathon Men Who Can’t Go Home
“Each had come to America with the hope of making life-changing money that they could send back home to their families. What they found was an often desperate existence in their adopted homeland.”
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.
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. […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week’s edition highlights stories by Skip Hollandsworth, Arielle Isack, J.R. Moehringer, Romina Cenisio, and Daniel Miller.
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.”


