“The word he came up with was solastalgia, a portmanteau word of the Latin solus, which means ‘abandonment and loneliness,’ and nostalgia.”
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Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2021
Pravesh Bhardwaj read and and shared 304 short stories on the #longreads Twitter hashtag in 2020. Here are his favorites.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Emily Giambalvo, Maureen Tkacik, Zuzana Justman, Jennifer Colville, and Roshani Chokshi.
The Alabama “Corrections” System: An American Horror Story
“When you lay down to go to sleep, you better be prayed up, because there’s no guarantee you’re waking up.”
Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild
Joe Schreibvogel AKA Joe Exotic AKA the Tiger King collected exotic animals and very young husbands at his private Oklahoma zoo. He’s now in jail, found guilty of hiring people to kill an outspoken critic of his who owns of a big cat sanctuary in Florida.
Queens of Infamy: Boudicca
If you underestimate a woman determined to avenge violence against her daughters, prepare yourself to get sacked. On repeat.
A Theory of Animals
“They are determined to get rid of us, and we can no longer rely on our community’s miraculous evolution alone to protect us. We cannot expend all our energy every day just to survive, just to see another morning, like a desert animal.”
Every Living Creature
When a massive Caribbean volcano erupts, the island’s residents flee, leaving their beloved animals behind. As pets and livestock are engulfed in ash and penned in by lava, waiting to perish, three brave souls risk death and evade the law to save every last one. A modern-day Noah’s Ark.
‘Midwesterners Have Seen Themselves As Being in the Center of Everything.’
In “The Heartland,” Kristin L. Hoganson says America’s Midwest has been more connected to global events than popular history allows — especially popular history as told in the Midwest.

