From way back in ’80s Philadelphia, Elizabeth Isadora Gold remembers her first writing teacher, the mail art artist/lyricist Stu Horn.
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The Christmas Tape
Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
Welcome to Hive
Hive is a new Longreads series about women and the music that has influenced them.
This Month In Books: What Did We Miss?
The end of the year is a time for regrets. What are the books we didn’t feature?
This Week in Books: We’ve All Been Briefed
“They have washed their hands for you. / And they take the bus home.” —Jericho Brown
Life After Pain
One day, Ge Gao’s right hand stopped working. Then the pain started, and it’s never stopped.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Evan Ratliff, Gene Weingarten, Zachary Fagenson, Michael H. Keller and Gabriel J.X. Dance, and Clio Chang.
Concealing a Catastrophe: ‘The Day the Music Burned’
“The vault fire was not, as UMG suggested, a minor mishap, a matter of a few tapes stuck in a musty warehouse. It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.”
The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form
Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.
‘Someone Took Care to Get it Right’: The Birds of the Seven Kingdoms
On the delightfully nerdy role of birds and bird calls in Game of Thrones.

