We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in essays.
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Posted inEssays & Criticism, Story
Trouble
Two women share a history of daring, of lost direction, of dark bedrooms, and an enforced silence they finally break.
Posted inArts & Culture, History, Science & Nature, Story
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Perfume
Sometimes it takes a touch of darkness to create something alluring.
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Dead Girls: An Interview with Alice Bolin
It’s clear we love the Dead Girl, enough to rehash and reproduce her story, to kill her again and again. But not enough to see a pattern.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
The Dead End on My Record Shelf
I believed that there was no music existing in the world with an unbroken connection to its original context. I was wrong.
Posted inStory
Why Lhasa de Sela Matters
Raised in a school bus by itinerant hippie parents, with one foot in Mexico and one in the US, the singer blossomed into her true multicultural self in bilingual Montreal.
Posted inNonfiction
Does the Woman in the Painting Have a Secret?
In the wake of her mother’s passing, Dylan Landis wrestles with unanswered questions about love and art, and imagines different possibilities of what could have been.
Posted inUncategorized
The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2017
The personal essays, original reporting, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story, Unapologetic Women, Writing
Lyrical Ladies, Writing Women, and the Legend of Lauryn Hill
Joan Morgan’s “She Begat This” looks back at how Lauryn Hill crashed through hip-hop’s glass ceiling, while our critic looks at how the author and a cadre of black women writers did the same for hip-hop music journalism.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
How to Predict the Unpredictable
After the death of her dog, Katie Gutierrez grapples with the ripple effects of her decisions — and how to live with uncertainty as a mother.
