After years of trying to distinguish herself, Sara Eckel considers the value of door-to-door canvassing, phone-banking, and other anonymous tasks of everyday activism.
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Posted inNonfiction
Finding the Soundtrack to My Desert Life
In the ’90s, discovering the music of Friends of Dean Martinez helped Aaron Gilbreath stop running and appreciate life in his native Arizona.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Taking Up Smoking at the End of the World
In his late twenties, John Sherman finds a new fondness for cigarettes, despite everything he was ever taught about them.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
When a Mother and Daughter Reverse Roles
An obsession with an orphaned sea otter helps Marlene Adelstein process her grief over her Alzheimers-afflicted mom.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Do You Give Up On Treating a Child With Cancer?
Two parents prepared for their son to die after he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Then something astonishing happened.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Giving the Ultimate Gift: Granting the Wish to Die at Home
Andrew McMillen writes on palliative care as a critical service, and of the “power and the grace” required to care for those who are terminally ill and grant their dying wish: to die peacefully, at home.
Posted inArts & Culture, Story
“No Fatties”: When Health Care Hurts
A fat person walking into a doctor’s office can expect lectures, condescension, and misdiagnoses from a medical culture that chalks every health issue up to weight.
Posted inNonfiction
This Is to Mother You: On Caring for a Toxic Parent in Her Greatest Time of Need
When her challenging, cancer-ridden mother suffers a psychotic break, Jane Demuth searches for the wherewithal to help the person who once demanded the most of her.
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. The Great A.I. Awakening Gideon Lewis-Kraus | New York Times | Dec. 14, 2016 | 60 minutes (15,174 words) The story of how Google developed artificial intelligence to vastly improve its translation service, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
Finally Seeing the Forest for the Trees
After a spate of trauma and loss, Maura Kelly retreats to the Hudson Valley where she is converted into a ‘nature person.’
