Why it’s important to give things a sniff.
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Plastic’s Broken Promise
“The first one I saw was on the path outside my house: a single white plastic glove, the fingers curled inward like a sleeping animal.”
The Strange and Dangerous World of America’s Big Cat People
A headline-grabbing murder-for-hire plot helped expose the dark side of exotic animal ownership in the U.S. Is there now enough momentum to reform the industry?
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Alexander Chee, Matt Gallagher, Delphine Minoui, Lauren Markham, and Jamie Figueroa.
I Remember the Bookstore
Jason Guriel | On Browsing | November 2022 | 4,361 words (15 minutes) Let’s browse a bookstore—a Platonic one, a composite. Let’s wander an aisle, running our fingertips across a wall of spines. One spine, thick and black, juts out: the recent NYRB Classics reissue of William Gaddis’s novel The Recognitions. It’s a block of a book, […]
The Bad Thing
Sometimes the most haunting part of trauma isn’t what happened—it’s wondering what could have happened if you hadn’t trusted your gut.
Who’s Afraid of Lorne Michaels?
Very rarely can we see an entire system reflected in one person. The creator and executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” is such a person.
I was Hypnotized as a Teen. Was it Dangerous?
Each year, comedy hypnotists bring thousands of willing participants on stage to be hypnotized in front of crowds—harmless fun or risky business?

