What/If references the celebrated steamy genre of the 80s and 90s, but lacks its guts. Why can’t any of the new neo-noirs go all the way?
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Longreads Best of 2017: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand
The singular singer released her groundbreaking album in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington, and used her art and appearance as weapons in the Civil Rights struggle.
Alabama’s History Haunts, But It Also Instructs
The hope and future of the United States is bound to Alabama’s.
Prosecutor, Interrupted: A Kamala Harris Reading List
Profiles of Senator Harris over the past decade show her as both smart and warm. Increasingly, they ask if she has what it takes to win.
A Frustrating Year of Reporting on Black Maternal Health
Stories of women of color dying of childbirth have dominated headlines — but little has been done to change postpartum care.
A History of American Protest Music: When Nina Simone Sang What Everyone Was Thinking
“Mississippi Goddam” was an angry response to tragedy, in show tune form.
Nina Simone’s Three Years of Freedom
At Guernica, Katherina Grace Thomas turns a lens on the years Nina Simone spent in Liberia in the mid-1970s.
What It Was Like to Hear Nina Simone Live
Nina Simone’s explosiveness was well known. In concert, she was quick to call out anyone she noticed talking, to stop and glare or hurl a few insults or even leave the stage. Yet her performances, richly improvised, were also confidingly intimate—she needed the connection with her audience—and often riveting. Even in her best years, Simone […]

