The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
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One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough nutritious food to eat on a daily basis. Tracie McMillan talks to some of these families, while three photographers set out to different parts of the country to document what life looks like when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

-Andrew J. Bacevich, in Notre Dame magazine, on the history of U.S. war in the Middle East over the past 30 years, and why there’s no end (or strategy) in sight.
More military in the Longreads Archive
Photo: usafe, Flickr

From E.J. Levy’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which was featured in the 2005 edition of The Best American Essays, edited by Susan Orlean. When anyone asks me to name a favorite essay I’ve read, I often point to this one.

Dave Eggers | Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? | June 2014 | 23 minutes (5,800 words)
—I did it. You’re really here. An astronaut. Jesus.
—Who’s that?
—You probably have a headache. From the chloroform.
—What? Where am I? Where is this place? Who the fuck are you?
—You don’t recognize me?
—What? No. What is this? Read more…
Exploring the food diary as a mnemonic device. “Andy Warhol kept what he called a ‘smell collection,’ switching perfumes every three months so he could reminisce more lucidly on those months whenever he smelled that period’s particular scent. Food, I figured, took this even further. It involves multiple senses, and that’s why memories that surround food can come on so strong.”

Rachel Khong | Lucky Peach | Spring 2014 | 20 minutes (5,009 words)
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The average American will drink over 3,000 gallons of soda. He will eat about 28 pigs, 2,000 chickens, 5,070 apples, and 2,340 pounds of lettuce. How much of that will he remember, and for how long, and how well? Read more…

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” – Russell Baker
Productivity in the summertime is a delicate equation. Everything, from temperature hikes to sunny skies to humidity, affects how much work we do and how happily we do it.

Laurie Woolever, in The Billfold, on how she ended up becoming Anthony Bourdain’s assistant:

Emily Gould | Friendship | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | July 2014 | 8 minutes (1,893 words)
Below is the opening chapter of Friendship, the new novel by Emily Gould, who we’ve featured often on Longreads in the past. Thanks to Gould and FSG for sharing it with the Longreads community. You can purchase the full book from WORD Bookstores.
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