The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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A lucky few have escaped from prison once—Douglas Alward has made it out seven times.

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
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Buzz Bissinger reports about the case of the stolen Lipinksi Stradivarius violin last winter, which was recovered by the Milwaukee Police Department and FBI after they tracked down its thief, a street criminal who had allegedly dreamed of stealing one in prison.
An academic’s account of 125 days in an Iranian prison.

Profiling documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras for The New Yorker, George Packer writes of her latest film, “Citizenfour,” which tells the story of N.S.A. whistleblower Edward Snowden. Packer describes the documentary as a political thriller in three acts, with the second act chronicling Snowden’s time in Hong Kong. Over the course of eight days Poitras filmed Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room for twenty hours, and “the act proceeds chronologically through the eight days in the hotel room, taking up a full hour of the hundred-and-thirteen-minute film.”
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
* * *
Arlena Lindley’s boyfriend beat her and murdered her child—so why was she sentenced to 45 years in prison?

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
* * *
A story about a crippled legal system: Sixteen-year-old Kalief Browder spent three years imprisoned on Rikers Island on robbery charges with shaky evidence. His case never went to trial.

When I am wracked with anxiety, I make a list of everything that is stressing me. These lists have included “transportation plans for this weekend,” “living at home,” “Sandy [my dog] dying,” “getting props for the play” and “editing articles for The Annual.” I don’t write solutions. Sometimes, there are no solutions, or the solutions are not immediate, which makes me worry even more. Just writing down what weighs on my mind helps.
The act of writing moves these things out of my head, where they take up space in my subconscious, and makes them tangible and coherent. These lists are a part of my self-care routine—a routine I adopted when I suffered from a particularly nasty bout of depression in college. I use this ritual today, and I do other things too: I eat three meals every day; I get enough sleep at night; I read to relax; I take my medications; I clean my room; I listen to music or to podcasts; I call my friends; I sleep some more.
Here’s another list: four authors who write about their experiences with anxiety, its roots and its bedfellows.
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