This week, our editors recommend stories by Seth Harp, Alanna Mitchell, Cezary Podkul, Alex Vuocolo, and Loren Grush.
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We ❤️ Librarians (and the Week’s Top 5)
“I still work as a librarian . . . . But my work has changed drastically. I’m trained in violence de-escalation, trauma-informed reference, and medical and mental health first aid, which includes overdose prevention training. I have intervened in fights, talked people down from suicide, removed domestic violence victims from their abusers, hugged strangers, and […]
New York City on Fire (and Our Top 5)
“As with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, for instance, the lead-up to the arson campaign on November 25, 1864, was long, ugly, and both actively and tacitly encouraged by powerful men.” Hello, Friday! To help kick off your weekend, we’ve rounded up some reads for you. Our first recommendation, from […]
“They Took Us Away From Each Other”: Lost Inside America’s Shadow Foster System
“It would take years before Molly and Heaven would learn that neither of them was ever in the foster system. Instead, caseworkers had diverted them to what some scholars call ‘hidden foster care’ or ‘shadow foster care,’ in which the legal protections of the formal system disappear.”
Why Creative Work Still Matters and the Week’s Top 5
“The implication is that to exist within a community or to practice a craft out of passion and joy is not success. To many, maybe, that is true. But how limited is our potential, our community, our creativity when success is defined like that?” Does anyone remember that this week started out with an extra […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen, and Paul Kiel, Arno Kopecky, Isaac Würmann, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, and Laura Spinney.
Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.
“What happened on that Friday and in the days after, when police rounded up even more kids, would expose an ugly and unsettling culture in Rutherford County, one spanning decades. In the wake of these mass arrests, lawyers would see inside a secretive legal system that’s supposed to protect kids, but in this county did […]
Heeding Steve Bannon’s Call, Election Deniers Organize to Seize Control of the GOP — and Reshape America’s Elections
“The stolen election myth inspired thousands of Trump supporters to take over the Republican Party at the local level, exerting more partisan influence on how elections are run.”
Abandoned Music Dreams and The Week’s Top 5
“It felt like a homecoming but in retrospect seems more like a goodbye: a last great musical act before leaving that period of my life. It felt romantic, anyway, to record in a barn. We set the drums next to the tractor, tried to coax the chickens into cooing for the microphone, and had a […]


