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Longreads Best of 2020: Essays
A small sampling of standout essays published this year.
The End of Travel
“Driven by the need for a storied life, I relished the opportunity for endless travel. Is that a moment in time, now over?”
I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty.
Caity Weaver spends the whole of this essay complaining — which makes it highly entertaining. Exposing the miserable reality behind the Instagram photos depicting #vanlife, this is a breath of fresh (van) air. To suggest that the worst part of vacationing in a van is sleeping in a van is not fair to the other […]
Open to the Outlandish: A Conversation with Rebecca Renner
Brendan O’Meara talks to author and journalist Rebecca Renner about getting the first draft down, the importance of a strong editor, and how a story evolves from pitch to publication.
Tinder Hearted
An essay on the author’s “Tinder decade” — ten years spent swiping, dating, ghosting, getting ghosted, and considering how the app shapes lives: I learned to be buoyant in the face of disappointment. So many of these dates were just people plucked out of a random void and returned to that void after. The memory […]
Alone, But Not Lonely: A Reading List on Being Single
Six stories about making a life of one’s own.
Part One: The Crossing
This essay concentrates on describing small details about the people caught up in the war in Ukraine — and there is an incredible poignancy in that. Two volunteer soldiers sat in a Volkswagen ahead of me, wearing uniforms cobbled together at army surplus. A man with ill-fitting fatigues and black boots stood next to one […]
National Nightmare
An essay about the terrifying funhouse that is Washington, D.C., in the age of Trump, QAnon, and insurrection: Even while conspiracy or paranoia bring the truth of mainstream accounts into question, their main effect is to simplify, not to obscure; to add meaning where there is none, to imagine particles where there may or may […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories from Archie Bland, Elizabeth Bruenig, Anat Rubin, Dexter Thomas, and Elena Gosalvez Blanco.

