“Playing with Star Wars Lego bricks made them famous. Then a mysterious crime drove them apart.”
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Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from Suzy Hansen, Raksha Vasudevan, Linda Kinstler, Erica Berry, and Dave Denison.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Acts of the Apostles
“In a community hard-hit by opioids, one pastor is knocking on motel room doors to invite people to worship. The message: We’re all broken people.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Everyone in Stephenville Thought They Knew Who Killed Susan Woods
“That left the real culprit free to prey on others, including one victim who was ignored for two decades.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Cause of the Crime Wave Is Hiding in Plain Sight
When crime goes up, divining the root of the problem is usually as ideologically fraught as it is practically impossible. But this probing feature from Alec MacGillis eludes both traps. Instead, it examines two American cities and comes to a conclusion that’s all the more compelling for its obviousness: stop letting people rot in jail. […]
Posted inNonfiction
Wearing All the Hats: A Chat with the Writer and Editor Behind The Atavist’s New Issue
In this excerpt from The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, host Brendan O’Meara talks to Seyward Darby about “Fault Lines,” her Atavist writing debut.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Smallest Victims: Why Does America Keep Allowing Toddlers to Shoot Themselves?
“Nearly every day, a child unintentionally fires a gun and injures or kills someone. It’s one of the most preventable forms of gun violence—but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to solve.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Talented Ms. Highsmith
“I worked for the novelist in her final months. I thought she wanted to kill me.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Why I Might Have Done What I Did’: Conversations With Ireland’s Most Notorious Murderer
“Malcolm Macarthur was the wealthy, bookish socialite who shocked Ireland with a brutal double killing in 1982. I tracked him down and heard the tale he told about himself.”
Posted inUncategorized
Fabulous Fungi and Our Top 5 of the Week
“To a reading list on these mind-bending entities at a planetary tipping point, welcome. What you see here are only some fruiting bodies, the rest lies underneath.” I first learned about the parasitic fungus that takes over a bug’s body and commandeers its brain back in 2023, when I picked Zhengyang Wang’s “The Last of […]
