As she goes through treatment for breast cancer, Anne Boyer considers what being sick has cost her — physically, financially and emotionally — along with the societal and environmental costs of high-priced treatments.
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The Coastal Shelf
June Amelia Rose remembers coming out in her youth to a turbulent family as her mother died of cancer.
The Emptying
“I’m amazed at our human capacity to adapt to the unbearable. Almost anything can seem normal if it’s inflicted on us long enough.”
Our Braided Bread
In my native New York, I don’t feel the need to perfume the air around me with the sweet scent of challah. But here in Iowa, there is a void I need to fill.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Franklin Foer, Andy Greenberg, Jerry Saltz, Sara Selevitch, and Kyle Buchanan.
Twenty Years Later: A 9/11 Reading List
Six stories on the immediate and ongoing aftermath of the attacks that took place on September 11th, 2001.
9,000 Seconds, With Only 47 to Spare
“As he would later tell me, running was the rare sport where you mostly competed against yourself. You could learn without having to lose.”
The Trippy Science of Psychedelic Studies
Psychedelic substances show great promise treating everything from cancer to depression, anxiety to alcoholism. To help understand this burgeoning field of inquiry, one writer participates in a study. Tripping taught her as much about the promises as the dangers of medical psychedelics.
The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2020
The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
The Brazilian Healer and the Patron Saint of Impossible Causes
Leigh Hopkins faces the hidden truth about the world’s most famous spiritual surgeon and the irresistible desire to find ‘the cure.’

