Germany’s Black Forest faces a future of transformation. So do the people who have lived there for centuries.
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Loneliness, Power, and the Top 5 of the Week
“I want to be left alone, but I don’t want to be lonely.” Hanif Abdurraqib writes this about a tension that dominated the career of singer Phyllis Hyman—but it also feels like a familiar plea in this dim, early-January week, when many of us leave the chaos of extended family and drift back into our own homes, our own jobs, and perhaps our own small pockets of solitude.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Daniel Engber, Sara Reinis, James Dolan, Irina Dumitrescu, and Amelia Tait.
The Elephant Who Could Be a Person
“In the courts, elephant personhood is a keystone argument, the argument on which all other animal-rights and even environmental arguments could conceivably depend.”
How to Love a Swamp (and Our Top 5)
“But here’s the thing about swamps: They don’t go down easy. Swamps don’t protest, they insist.” I recently completed a road trip across the Canadian prairies, traveling through the mountains to the southwestern coast of British Columbia. I was relaxed at the wheel, and I enjoyed the chance to think, unencumbered even by radio stations along […]
Best of 2023: Investigations
Our top picks in the investigative reporting category.
A New Series, An Unknown History, and the Week’s top 5
“Minstrelsy shows you one hand, convinces you of one thing—the thing you can see most vividly—while something else works behind the scenes. That something is something only those who are tapped into a specific kind of pain, a specific kind of quest for freedom that has failed before but is not worth abandoning, might understand.” […]
Our Top 5: Cultivated Meat, Scammers, and More
Three favorite five-star reads and our Top 5.
The Uncanniest Valley (and the Rest of Our Top 5)
In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.
Terror in the Woods and the Week’s Top 5
“I thought about the road leaving town, turning from pavement to dirt, mile after mile winding deeper into the woods. If I really thought about danger, that the road might bring me somewhere I couldn’t get out of, would I still go? Do I think anything can prevent this from happening? Why do I believe […]


