We like to think Longreads furnishes more than simply emergency reading, and that’s certainly true this week.
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The Sky Thief
“He was not a pilot; he worked ground crew for Horizon Air. His core duties revolved around loading baggage onto short-haul flights, but he was also trained to tow planes on the tarmac. Silently, and without warning, he’d gone rogue.”
Up, Up, and Away to the Week’s Top 5
“Wallace was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sort. A 54-year-old Massachusetts lawyer and real estate developer, he couldn’t afford to fly conservatively. Gas ballooning, similar to jockeyship, favored lightweight pilots, who could stock their baskets with more sand. Compared with his slighter opponents, Wallace’s six-foot-five, 240-pound frame meant that the equivalent of three additional 30-pound bags of sand […]
The Toll of War and the Week’s Top 5
“Tesfaye wan’t sure where the gunfire was coming from, and with service outages across Mekelle, he couldn’t look online for answers. He was certain something was very wrong. But what could he do? He got dressed and did what he did most mornings. He went to work.” Every month, we share an excerpt from our […]
Justin Townes Earl: The Saint of Lost Causes
Fellow singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield, who frequently toured with Earle, described his gift more simply: “He was able to explain trouble better than most.”
The Very Public Library, Food as Fuel, and Our Top 5
“It’s our least popular and most enforced rule: we don’t allow people to sleep in the library. We know you’re tired, we know it’s warm, we know it feels safe. But someone who is dying also looks like someone who is sleeping, and we’ve all seen our share of overdoses. Also, if one person is […]
Outer Dark: A Cormac McCarthy Reading List
Saying goodbye to the legendary novelist.
Rush Drummer Neil Peart: Master Student
Neil Peart “was brilliant enough to skip two grades, starting high school at 12. He began drum lessons, practicing for a full year without an actual kit.”
A Couple’s Awakening and the Week’s Top 5
“Both marriage and religion had required exile from ourselves, a systematic suppression of our true identities. It was an adaptation that felt necessary for survival. But as I watched D explore, interrogate, and reinvent womanhood, changing the rules before my eyes, I wondered if I had been wrong.” Happy Friday, even if (in the Northern […]
Musical Rivalries and our Weekly Top 5
“Before hip-hop brought the concept of ‘beef’ into the mainstream, rock and roll’s aggression and excess resulted in many an unfriendly rivalry; decades earlier, the hard life of the traveling jazz musician led to some heady and memorable fallouts. Whether it’s pop stars, country singers, dancehall artists, or Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent multi-song war, […]

