“Empty spaces on maps were so terrifying to ancient mapmakers that they filled them with decorations, fictional landscapes, and monsters. We moderns miss the beautiful monsters, but what if they never actually disappeared? What if the monsters were always part of the map, part of mapping itself?” After many months of hearing about how great […]
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On the Hollow Highs of Hallmark Holiday Films (and More)
“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]
Best of 2024: The Stories You Missed
It’s been a busy year: Here are some noteworthy pieces that may have passed you by.
The Food of America and Our Top 5
As Thanksgiving and gluttony approach, I’ve been thinking about what foods represent America and how eating can shape a sense of identity—a theme past Longreads writers have been drawn to.
An English Murder Mystery, an Antarctic Romance, and Our Top 5
“I know this land is far from sinister, I know it is appreciated by those who live here, but I also see that the life of a dairy farmer is often a hard, unforgiving existence. And no family saw that solitude and struggle more than the Luxtons.” In the late summer of 1975, deep in […]
What the Journey Brings, and Our Weekly Top 5
“I-95 is an artery of ambition, movement, and flight. A place where millions of people hurry toward love and loss, carrying their hope, their grief, their ordinary Tuesdays, all at 70 miles per hour.” A favorite program of mine is Race Across the World. The concept is simple: Teams must cross entire countries without flying, armed only […]
What Neko Case taught me about curation and the week’s Top 5
“When the media covered women in the grunge and alternative scene, it treated them like a genre unto itself. This genre, though, received almost no in-depth profiles or features.” Books are one of the great joys in my life. The other is music. I’ve been following singer songwriter Neko Case since 1997, after picking up […]
Our Sister’s Netflix Hit and the Week’s Top 5
“But all was not well in the house on the corner of Lincoln Road and 52nd Street. It belonged to Dennis and Brenda Bowman, a married couple with two children. For the Bowmans, March 11 marked the last time they saw their 14-year-old daughter, Aundria, alive.” We’ve got some big news this week from our […]
Parks and Re-Creation (and the Week’s Top 5)
“In spite of my confidence in cooking, I’ve never brought mulukhiyah into my urban kitchen. Eating it without my family’s elbows pressed against mine doesn’t make sense to me. I know I’d feel like an impostor, inserting myself into the sacred and altering it irreparably, as I can’t help but reinvent recipes with my own improvised […]

