“To my right is one of the largest manmade toxic holes on Earth. To my left, shelves of coal-colored slag piled twenty feet high. And underfoot, ten thousand miles of poisoned shafts swimming with ghosts.” Hello from Berkeley, California. Our family loves to explore the city’s parks, where we can hike through redwood forests in […]
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we are featuring stories from Piper French, Jordan Blumetti, Zing Tsjeng, Ryan Cantú, and Luke Winkie.
The Meaning of Tattoos and Our Top 5 of the Week
“When my father-in-law was growing up in Baltimore and misbehaved in Hebrew school with his friends, their teachers would calmly unbutton their cuffs and roll up their sleeves, revealing their tattoos from Auschwitz. I’ve seen worse, the tattoos said. Or perhaps, This could happen to you.” What does your tattoo mean? It’s a question often asked of […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Charlotte Bailey, Hanif Abdurraqib, Taylar Dawn Stagnar, Patrick Madden, and Kevin Chroust.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we’re sharing stories from Jennifer Senior, Danyel Smith, Christopher Mathias, Mitchell Consky, and Tamara Saade.
Unknown Costs
Forty-three million Americans need substance addiction treatment, but only a tiny fraction receive it. We know why.
Pondering Parenthood, Meals for One, and Five Excellent Reads
“When faced with a dilemma I can’t solve, my usual strategy is to read. I order a bunch of books and immerse myself in other people’s experiences. It allows my thoughts to coalesce around a few themes; from there, I can see where I agree and where I diverge. To paraphrase Joan Didion, I read […]
Holograms of the Holocaust (and Our Top 5)
“Over many decades, my grandmother gave responses to thousands of questions, wrote tens of thousands of words, and spoke for hours and hours while tapes rolled. She would be, in other words, the perfect candidate for AI reanimation.” In my household, the transition from summer to fall has been tough. Lately, to help my daughter […]
Hoops, Double Helices, and Our Top 5
“I’m not just crying, I’m truly wailing. I’m one of Homer’s grieving women, I’m Alice in Wonderland crying an actual ocean between hiccups, I’m Diane Keaton weeping then whooping in her Something’s Gotta Give breakup montage. My team, the Lakers, has lost.” I confess: I did not know much about basketball until I worked with Rachel Dlugatch […]
Longreads Best of 2022: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
All the stories we’ve selected as number one in our weekly Top 5 newsletter.


