These are the stories I couldn’t stop thinking about—the ones that ask us to sit with darkness and still find reasons to keep going.
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Has The Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)?
Author Jarett Kobek believes he’s uncovered the true identity of the Zodiac Killer: an eccentric man named Paul Doerr, who died in 2007. Doerr’s daughter, Gloria, isn’t so sure — until Aaron Gell suggests that the two of them come together to meet. In this chilling story for Los Angeles magazine, Gell describes how Kobek’s […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring notable stories by Antonia Cundy, Adrian Walker, Evan Allen, Elizabeth Koh, Andrew Ryan, Kristin Nelson, Brendan McCarthy, Frederick Kaufman, Lygia Navarro, and Judith Hannah Weiss.
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 […]
He Grew Up in California. Now, He’s Forced to Live in His Birth Country — a Place He’s Never Known
“Gov. Newsom declined to stop the deportation of a man who spent 26 years atoning for a violent crime. Will Phoeun You ever get a second chance?”
Why Did Walter Springs Die?
“In time, it was almost as if he had never existed at all.”
Loneliness, Power, and the Top 5 of the Week
“Heartbreak makes for a delicious spectacle, from afar.” “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 […]
A List About Lists and the Week’s Top 5
“To love a list is to partake in letter and word, form and change. To make lists is to join a long line of list makers, to indulge in a timeless art, to break down the artificial wall that separates thinking and doing, thinkers and doers.” For some people, it’s simply a pen and index […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we are featuring stories from Fletcher Reveley, Susan Freinkel, Nick Paumgarten, Dana Salvador, and Kathryn Hughes.
‘Why You Talking to a Bum?’
“When the very presence of unhoused people on the Chicago Transit Authority is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?”


