“I may never have wanted to be a librarian, but I love this job. This specific job. Not because of any kind of noble commitment to knowledge or love of books. I love it because every day requires me to meet humanity face to face.” What does it mean to be a librarian today? At […]
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Science Cheats: A Reading List on Unscrupulous Scientists
Six stories on the shady side of scholarship.
Diving into 2024 with an Excerpt and Our Top 5
“She did live. She had to wear a catheter for several weeks, but she got better. The long recovery gave Debra time to think on what she wanted to do about the man who had hurt her.” Welcome to 2024! We are back for another year of editors’ picks, stirring originals, and inspiring reading lists. Kicking […]
‘Why You Talking to a Bum?’
“When the very presence of unhoused people on the Chicago Transit Authority is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?”
Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we recommend stories from Sophia Panych, Brian Payton, Jeannette Cooperman, Joshua Hunt, and Sophie Elmhirst.
Anatomy of Absolute Power
The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember a longtime sheriff as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask.
‘Are We Breaking Apart, Or Is There Enough Left to Bind Us?’
Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.
How Silence Protects and Harms Us (plus the Week’s Top 5)
“We still fight with the same Vietnamese stubbornness that is in our blood. I struggle with knowing far more English than Vietnamese. As you age, I fret about the ultimate silence of losing you. Although this dynamic will never go away, there have been new rhetorical tools to soften our challenges. Phrases like ‘I’m sorry’ […]
Stories on Shady Science (and Our Top 5)
“On one hand, it’s critical to root out research fraud and serious errors. On the other hand, highlighting the most dramatic outliers risks creating the impression that science as a whole can’t be trusted.” When I told my 7-year-old daughter that the recent viral clip of bunnies jumping on a trampoline was fake, she looked […]
The Enduring Joy of Maps (and the Week’s Top 5)
“Empty spaces on maps were so terrifying to ancient mapmakers that they filled them with decorations, fictional landscapes, and monsters. We moderns miss the beautiful monsters, but what if they never actually disappeared? What if the monsters were always part of the map, part of mapping itself?” After many months of hearing about how great […]


