“I peeled the list off the windshield and held it like an artifact: evidence of a life I didn’t know but suddenly cared about. It read like a poem. A confession. What was the story behind this list, I wondered—and what would come for this stranger after the checkout aisle?” I love making lists. They […]
Pieces from Benji Jones, Howard Bryant, Carey Baraka, Sally Jenkins, and Jeannette Cooperman.
“Ritual is an urge and an act; it’s an aesthetic gesture. As an adult I established the habit of turning my attention to those subtle seasonal details and recording them. I was loving and honoring the land, but this practice still left something undone. A certain clarity, maybe formality. Something like a frame around a […]
“A former FBI agent traveled to Louisiana to ask a hired killer about a murder that haunted him. Then they started talking about a different case altogether.”
Twice a week we’ll send you our latest originals and all our editors’ picks, and Fridays you’ll receive our Top 5: deep writeups about our five favorite longform stories of the week, as chosen by our editors. (Full version of Top 5 for Longreads members only.)
Hi there, Somehow, this is the thirteenth year of our annual “Best Of” series. As usual, we’ll be sharing our favorite reads across several categories—but this week, we wanted to try something a little different. Starting yesterday and for the remainder of the week, you’ll find an essay from each of the Longreads editors, reflecting […]
The 10 top-performing essays published on Longreads this year.
“I left Trip House at 8:12 on Saturday morning, having not been murdered, and drove to the Magic Kingdom. The woman at the ticket window asked if I’d come to Disney World to celebrate anything special, and I laughed. If I answered that question truthfully — using unmagical words like ‘genital,’ ‘student loan,’ and ‘gentrification’ […]
Whether competition between artists or strife within a band, popular music features some of pop culture’s messiest rivalries.
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Tuesdays and Thursdays, we'll send you our latest originals and all our editor's picks—and Fridays, go even deeper with our Top 5 of the Week.
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