Below, our favorite stories of the week.
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The Secret Nazi Attempt to Breed the Perfect Horse
The bestselling author of ‘The Eighty Dollar Champion’ describes the Nazis’ secret stud farm, where dubious visionaries imagined a breed of perfect (and perfectly white) horse.
Loneliness and Solitude: A Reading List
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 […]
The Life and Murder of Stella Walsh, Intersex Olympic Champion
Eighty years ago, in Berlin, Stella Walsh won her second Olympic medal. Decades later, Walsh’s murder and subsequent autopsy threw the legacy of track’s first female superstar into turmoil.
Letter to an Ex, on the Occasion of His Suicide
In the wake of a troubled ex-lover’s suicide, novelist Masha Hamilton tries to make sense of it in a correspondence to his ghost.
What de Blasio and Uruguay’s José Mujica Have In Common
I showed the group a Guardian article calling [Uruguay’s President] Mujica “the world’s most radical president.” They burst into contemptuous groans. Last January, Bill de Blasio took over as mayor of New York City. The election was a landslide; the hopes invested in him near messianic. “When New York City Democrats head to the polls […]
Mass Extinction: The Early Years
A quick rundown of the ecocidal empires that came before us.
Letter to an Ex, on the Occasion of His Suicide
In the wake of a troubled ex-lover’s suicide, novelist Masha Hamilton tries to make sense of it in a correspondence to his ghost.
Loneliness and Solitude: A Reading List
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 […]
A Liberated Woman: The Story of Margaret King
Inspired by her governess, the radical feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret King cast aside her immense privilege, cross-dressed as a man to go to medical school, and inspired a new generation of women to push against the rigid conventions of their era.

