When I moved from a small town in Northern California to Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 2010, I felt the pang of an inarticulable loneliness. Unable to string together words to describe this complicated feeling, I found Olivia Laing’s Aeon essay, “Me, Myself and I,” to be a starting point that began to […]
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Why Poor Schools Can’t Win at Standardized Testing Meredith Broussard | The Atlantic | July 21, 2014 | 12 minutes (3,091 words) […]
First Chapters: The Veins of the Ocean, by Patricia Engel
How we became a prison family.
Vera Nabokov, Eugen Boissevain, Leonard Woolf: On Spouses Who Supported Their Famous Partner's Writing Careers
At the Atlantic, Koa Beck writes about the spouses of famous writers who supported their partner’s writing careers, often devoting their lives to it. Vera Nabokov epitomized this: She not only performed the duties of cleaning and cooking expected of her as a wife in her era, but also worked as her husband’s “round-the-clock editor, […]
Glamorous Crossing: How Pan Am Airways Dominated International Travel in the 1930s
Starting with just a mail route, Juan Terry Trippe helped create a uniquely American luxury experience.
The Mask of Deception: The Ultimate Test to My Recovery From Porn Addiction
Novelist Benjamin Obler was feeling secure in his recovery from porn addiction. Then along came Franny, to test it.
Atomic Summer: An Essay by Joni Tevis
Buddy Holly, John Wayne, and the A-Bomb.
Oh, the Humanities! A Reading List Pertaining to the English Major
In college, I rearranged my majors and minors, all in the humanities, for years. I loved everything. Finally, I majored in English. It was fate—second-grade me was constantly in trouble for sneaking books under her desk. Majoring in English was both the joy and bane of my life. I struggled with a Faulkner-heavy Southern Lit course, […]
Oh, the Humanities! A Reading List Pertaining to the English Major
In college, I rearranged my majors and minors, all in the humanities, for years. I loved everything. Finally, I majored in English. It was fate—second-grade me was constantly in trouble for sneaking books under her desk. Majoring in English was both the joy and bane of my life. I struggled with a Faulkner-heavy Southern Lit course, […]
When Creativity Comes in Pairs—Then Comes Apart
What ultimately brought their work together to a halt was not creative disagreements but business ones. During his power grab, John was sweet-talked by a canny, dubious manager named Allen Klein, with whom he promptly signed. George and Ringo followed—pure primate politics there. But Paul would not. And so legend has it that the Beatles […]

