“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 […]
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Our Year in Reading and the Week’s Top 5
Every story changes our mind in some small way. They’re already in implicit conversation with one another, and our “Year in Reading” series acknowledges that.
Outer Dark: A Cormac McCarthy Reading List
Saying goodbye to the legendary novelist.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring notable stories from Paul Solotaroff, Maddie Oatman, Gabriel Smith, Meg Bernhard, and Alexandra Horowitz.
Interspecies Communication, An Ultra-Incredible Recovery, and Our Top 5
“From the mycelial ‘wood wide web’ to smart slime molds and political honeybees, science is demonstrating that humans don’t monopolize language or intelligence.” With advancements in artificial intelligence, scientists are learning more about the ways non-human species communicate with each other—and how they might communicate with us. In this week’s new reading list, “Wild Talk,” Sam […]
Remember the Titans: An ‘Attack on Titan’ Reading List
The influential anime didn’t just upend kaiju tropes—it delivered an unsettling look at imperialism and hubris.
August 3, 2023
“Some animals don’t flee when the mixer comes. They hold their ground. Wait for the trouble to pass. But nothing in their evolution has prepared them for an eight-foot-wide drum covered in corkscrewing blades coming straight towards their soft bodies where they hunker in their meadow homes.” Let’s get this weekend started, shall we? We’ve […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we’re recommending stories by Moira Donegan, Danyel Smith, Dan Kois, Michael Aylwin, and Becky Ferreira.
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 […]
How to Save True Crime: A Reading List of Wrongful Conviction Stories
Stories about wrongful convictions open our eyes to systemic injustices in the U.S. court system. Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project, compiles his recommended longreads within the genre.


