“One insomniac’s descent into the world of sleep research to understand what screens before bed are doing to our brains.”
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A Few Good Men
“Jordan Neely’s killer and the racist violence at the heart of the American imperial project.”
600? Is That Even Possible?
“There are bookshelves in every room of my home except the bathroom, and I often squirrel away small books as emergency reading to be carried in purses and backpacks, for buses, trains, and waiting rooms.” Well, here we are. We’ve been rounding up our five favorite stories of the week for more than 12 years […]
Questioning the Stories We Hold: A Reading List Inspired by Annie Ernaux
Five stories that question the stories we hold about ourselves.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Notable reads by Atef Abu Saif, Sonia Smith, James McNaughton, Dorothy Wickenden, and Kevin Koenig.
Night Shifts
“Clearly dreams do something for us,” writes Michael W. Clune. “If not, why would evolution have endowed us with the capacity?” In this essay, Clune explores the fascinating world of dream engineering via a device called the Dormio, which enables a person to shape the images that appear during hypnagogia, the transitional stage between wakefulness […]
My Dad and Kurt Cobain
This excerpt from Hua Hsu’s memoir offers a glimpse into his parents’ generation of immigrants from Taiwan to America, and the faxes they sent to each other about homework, zines, and Nirvana. My parents had fond memories of listening to the station when they were teen-agers, back when it was Armed Forces Radio. In time, […]
Sewing Lessons
In this personal essay at Salvation South, a new magazine edited by the founding editor-in-chief of The Bitter Southerner, Shelley Johansson retells her family’s story against the background of World War II. I know my great-grandmother felt that she was helping the war effort when she sewed bandages – her pride radiates off the page […]
My Decade of Temporary Homes
“I see, in hindsight, how mastering the ability to see through cards did not seem like an impossible thing to him. He had made seemingly impossible things happen before.”


