Pointless elitism, or an urgent dress rehearsal for the climate crisis?
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Barton Gellman, Latria Graham, Teju Cole, Samuel Ashworth, and Shanna Baker.
A Racist Scientist Built a Collection of Human Skulls. Should We Still Study Them?
“After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked protests for racial justice around the country, more and more people within and outside Penn began to see the Morton collection as a present-day perpetuation of racism and its harms, rather than just a historic example.”
Rescuing the Rescuer: Saving Myself from a Lifetime of Hurt
How witnessing trauma after trauma on the mountain exacts a cumulative emotional toll on ski patrollers.
The Road to Becoming Enough
I began, if not to turn away from the mythical notion of a man to “complete” me, to accept that there was no love out there for me. I chose mountains instead.
‘A Lesson in Loss, Humility and Absurdity’: How Rhythmic Gymnastics Took Over My Childhood
“To an outside observer, I was a little girl in a sparkly leotard throwing a hoop back and forth, but in reality, my life in rhythmic gymnastics felt less like a sleepover-friendly teen drama than one of those hardboiled stories about a steely renegade on a single-minded quest – usually a man, hardened by middle-age, […]
Life in the Slow Lane
Olivia Potts | Longreads | November 2022 | 16 minutes (4,649 words) It’s six in the morning, and Robert Booth has already been on the road for three hours. Sitting alongside him in the cab of his lorry (the British term for a truck) is Louis, Robert’s small dog, a Jack Russell-chihuahua mix, and a washing-up bowl […]
Digital Havoc: A Reading List About Hacking
Behind the 1s and 0s, hackers are still people—and their motivations are more nuanced than you might think.
Cabin Fever: A Reading List for the Perpetually Isolated
How the pandemic made us confront what it means to be alone.
Those Were the Days of Our Lives This Generation Will Never Know The True Freedom — and Neglect — of Being an ’80s Kid.
“The hardest thing to convey to the children in my life about my childhood is the concept of unadulterated freedom. As people who have been scheduled and monitored down to the second for most of their lives, they truly cannot conceive of life outside of the panopticon of their own experience. When I was a […]

