In this beautiful piece from Matter, Mujib Mashal takes the reader to the Afghani airwaves, into the hearts of its listeners. From the complications of arranged marriage to online dating woes, the youth of Afghanistan have a lot on their minds. DJ Ajmal Noorzai solemnly shares their stories on his program, The Night of Lovers.
Search results
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Case for More Female Cops
Nearly nine out of ten cops are men. Sarah Smarsh discusses the police force’s gender problem and a Wichita woman’s efforts inside the criminal justice system that failed her.
Posted inFiction, Reading List, Uncategorized
10 Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2016
Below is a guest post from Mumbai-based writer-filmmaker—and longtime #longreads contributor—Pravesh Bhardwaj (@AuteurPravesh).
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Romantic Love: The Dominant Subject Matter of Western Popular Music
[Ted] Gioia shows that song lyrics about love, sex, marriage, and fertility can be traced all the way back to the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, and that once Jewish and Christian religious leaders came to terms with the iron determination of their own people to write and sing about romantic love, it quickly emerged as […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
An Exegesis on Spanking Fetishists
Jillian Keenan on her new memoir, which delves into her lifelong obsessions with spanking and Shakespeare.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Breaking the Mold
Social scientist Bella DePaulo’s research reveals a broader array of lifestyles—from our relationships to our living spaces—than many of us could dream up.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
First Chapters: The Veins of the Ocean, by Patricia Engel
How we became a prison family.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Jennifer Nix on June Carter Cash’s Influence on Her Life
In our hotel room that night, I broke out “Press On” and we took turns listening to songs on my Discman. Johnny and June’s duet “The Far Side Banks of Jordan” visibly stirred my dad, and at song’s end he said, “I wonder which one will go first. The other won’t last long after that.” […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can ‘Mad Maps’ Offer Patients a Way to Take Charge of Their Psychiatric Care?
Like advanced directives for the dying, DuBrul explained, mad maps allow psychiatric patients to outline what they’d like their care to look like in future mental health crises. The logic is: If a person can define health, while healthy, and differentiate health from crisis, that person can shape his or her own care. The maps […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Our Sex Education: A Reading List
Here are nine stories about modern-day sex education and our history with bad sex ed classes.
