The author of Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age and The Immortal King Rao on memorable meals and books about whales.
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Album as Poem, List as Confession, and Our Top 5
We may often think of poetry as something formal or grand, or meant for the pages of a book. But these two essays remind us that poetry lives in many places.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Sharing stories from John Woodrow Cox, Sarah Blaskey, and Matt McClain; Daphne Chouliaraki Milner and Marcia Bjornerud; Susan Choi; Henry Wismayer; and Susannah Pratt.
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Cory Doctorow
The author of Enshittification and the new The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI on hammock life, the joy of pulp, and writing through it.
By All Measures
Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
Harrowing Outdoor Adventure and the Week’s Top 5
“Traveling the entire length was the equivalent of climbing and descending more than eighteen Mount Everests over a distance equivalent to nearly fifty marathons.” I’m powerless against outdoor adventure stories. I love tales of arduous trips through harsh landscapes, ones where Mother Nature can be fickle, casting weather spells that bring surprise, danger, and a […]
Best of 2025: All Our Number Five Story Picks
Every story we selected for the number five slot in our weekly newsletter, in a handy digest.
Holograms of the Holocaust (and Our Top 5)
“Over many decades, my grandmother gave responses to thousands of questions, wrote tens of thousands of words, and spoke for hours and hours while tapes rolled. She would be, in other words, the perfect candidate for AI reanimation.” In my household, the transition from summer to fall has been tough. Lately, to help my daughter […]


