Recommending memorable pieces by Seth Freed Wessler, Stuart McGurk, Jon Mooallem, Ben Lerner, Kiese Laymon, and Amelia Tait.
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Growing Old Online
“Millennials, the first generation to be online as kids, are starting to feel like we’ve aged out. Is there a way to age gracefully on the internet?”
Posted inReading List
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2025
Kickstart your reading year with 10 short stories selected by longtime contributor Pravesh Bhardwaj.
Posted inUncategorized
‘How Did This Man Think He Had the Right to Adopt This Baby?’
“Army Rangers killed her parents. A Marine is raising her in America. But her Afghan family says she was taken under false pretenses.”
Posted inUncategorized
On the Hollow Highs of Hallmark Holiday Films (and More)
“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Into the Belly of the Whale With Sjón
“His books dance — with light, quick steps, never breaking eye contact — all over the line between the mythic and the mundane.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Making of Silent Bruce
The tragic end to Bruce Willis’ career — aphasia that challenges his speaking and cognition — shouldn’t befall anyone. Yet, as Matt Zoller Seitz points out in an incisive reading of the actor’s oeuvre, Willis long ago chose a path that would eerily presage his eventual diagnosis. You could say Willis’s career was never the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
John Updike, His Stories, and Me
“But now I’ve been a writer for 30 years, I can understand the impulses that I and he and probably every other writer have: to go after a subject we’re compelled by.”
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Patrick Radden Keefe
The New Yorker staff writer and author of the new book London Falling on running, writing in the morning, a life-changing childhood trip, and more.
