On duality, detachment, and life and death decisions.
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The Race That Turned to Ruin
“Fifteen teams lifted off from Switzerland in gas ballooning’s most audacious race. Three days later, two of them drifted into Belarusian airspace—but only one would survive.”
Found Poetry, Marital Musings, and our Top 5
“I peeled the list off the windshield and held it like an artifact: evidence of a life I didn’t know but suddenly cared about. It read like a poem. A confession. What was the story behind this list, I wondered—and what would come for this stranger after the checkout aisle?” I love making lists. They […]
Where Truffles Thrive, the Week’s Top 5, and a Member Drive
“Before we became such a complex profusion of cells, we were driven by chemical impulse, which a truffle knows better than anyone. That’s why they fetch the prices they do. Why animals will harm themselves to unearth a fruit. Why truffle hunters are poisoning one another’s dogs. Why suspected truffle thieves in French orchards get […]
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2025
Kickstart your reading year with 10 short stories selected by longtime contributor Pravesh Bhardwaj.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from David Roth, Dhruv Mehrotra and Andy Greenberg, Thomas Dai, Cameron Maynard, and Katherine Rundell.
A Trip to Twin Peaks and the Week’s Top 5
“I’d taken for granted how strange his work is—in the defiantly non-naturalistic performances he elicits from his actors and the surreal sheen of his stories and characters—until I started trying to explain the plot of Twin Peaks to Riley on our drive to Washington.” This week, we pay homage to director David Lynch, with Katherine […]
Kingdom of Funga: A Mycelial Reading List on a Strange and Surreal World Around Us
Seven stories celebrating the mystery and power of fungi.
Holding Pattern: A Reading List on Waiting . . .
Everyone waits. No one is spared the waiting room, one way or another. Seven stories on an essential human condition.


