A diagnosis alters a writer’s relationship to his work.
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When Food Is the Only Narrative We Consume
“Chinese culture can’t be made bite-sized for mass consumption.”
My Colon
“Until I was diagnosed last year, I had never met anyone with colon cancer—or at least anyone who had been open about it.”
An English Murder Mystery, an Antarctic Romance, and Our Top 5
“I know this land is far from sinister, I know it is appreciated by those who live here, but I also see that the life of a dairy farmer is often a hard, unforgiving existence. And no family saw that solitude and struggle more than the Luxtons.” In the late summer of 1975, deep in […]
Stories of Quarantine and Upheaval: A Reading List on the Power of Personal Narrative
During times of isolation and dramatic change, our stories from around the world are an essential global historical record.
Found Poetry, Marital Musings, and our Top 5
“I peeled the list off the windshield and held it like an artifact: evidence of a life I didn’t know but suddenly cared about. It read like a poem. A confession. What was the story behind this list, I wondered—and what would come for this stranger after the checkout aisle?” I love making lists. They […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from David Roth, Dhruv Mehrotra and Andy Greenberg, Thomas Dai, Cameron Maynard, and Katherine Rundell.
Happy Birthday to Us, and the Week’s Top 5
“The anxiety of hunger settled under my ribs like the feeling you get when you’re about to burst into tears. The hum of the refrigerator alone was enough to make me want to bury my head in the backyard. I often dreamt of donuts, and once, of my sister-in-law’s mother, a tenacious Serbian woman, bringing […]
Girl Genius
She will grow up and leave me and yet never leave me; she will be mine forever, a being I shaped.
Studying the Swarm
“During sex, the drone’s phallus explodes, killing him immediately. His purpose singular and disposable, his role complete.”


