Our top stories of the week, as chosen by the editors at Longreads.
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An Ode to Black Families: A Reading List
This narrative of the black family in America always been inadequate. It has never told the full story of what I know about black love.
You Are a Jigsaw Puzzle with Missing Food-Shaped Pieces
Fat, thin, over-eating, under-eating. Lindsay Hunter’s relationship with food, weight, and body image has been consistently complicated.
How Does It Feel? An Alternative American History, Told With Folk Music
On Guthrie, Robeson, Seeger, Lomax, Dylan, the Red Scare, the fall of labor, and what folk music had to do with it.
Back in the Kitchen: A Reading List About Gender and Food
Eight must-read essays on how we cook and how we eat.
Pregnant, then Ruptured
After an emergency operation, Joanna Petrone considers the medical advances and legal protections that allow women to survive ectopic pregnancies.
Longreads Best of 2016: Arts & Culture Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in arts and culture writing.
Girl Wonder
When Meaghan O’Connell finished reading a celebrated young author’s debut novel, she felt a mix of admiration, jealousy, and recognition of the powerlessness that comes with young adulthood.
Forever Yesterday: Peering Inside My Mom’s Fading Mind
Kevin Sampsell bears witness to the ways in which Alzheimer’s has been pulling his mother back in time, and taking over her life.
Full Disclosure: A Reading List About Confessions
In these six stories, a drunk driver confesses via viral video, an ex-Catholic returns to confession, a high-school cheater reveals her indiscretions, and more.

