Born from irritation and intrusion, luminous and complex, surprisingly durable: pearls are rich with symbolism and saturated with pain.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Donna Minkowitz, Stephen Rodrick, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Nadia Berenstein, and Shanna Baker.
If Only There Were Someone Who Would Listen
Dror Burstein’s “Muck” sets a difficult course through themes of power, pita bread, and invasion, mixing up the biblical past and the just-as-lamentable present.
Brigid, Magdalene, My Mother, and Me
Carmel Mc Mahon contemplates the legacy of trauma passed down through generations of Irish women.
Oklahoma: A Reading List
“I am leaving this state very soon, and it’s filled me with the kind of ache for understanding that so often accompanies a goodbye, a sense that I can never know quite enough.”
Here Be Tigers
If thousands of Australians claim to have seen the Tasmanian Tiger in the wild, then did it really go extinct in 1936?
Escaping Coronavirus Lockdown Through a Stranger’s Solitary Walks on YouTube
Under self-quarantine, Aaron Gilbreath ‘moves’ freely with the help of Rambalac’s video travelogues.
The Year of the Cat
Elisabeth Donnelly looks back at a relationship with a wily cat during a lonely time in upstate New York.
A Beast for the Ages
Why do we love (and fear, and kill) polar bears with so much intensity?
The Future of Castro’s Crocs
Shanna Baker reports on the ongoing bid to preserve C. rhombifer, the breed of Cuban crocodile beloved of Fidel Castro, who was known to send living and embalmed versions of the animal to allies around the world. The Cuban croc is endangered, not only due to shrinking habitat, but also to hybridization as its gene […]

