Searching for ritual during a season of mystery.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Jelani Cobb, Taylor Lorenz, Jack Shafer, and Max Tani; Nylah Iqbal Muhammad; Irina Dumitrescu; Leo Robson; and Caitlin Moran.
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2025
Kickstart your reading year with 10 short stories selected by longtime contributor Pravesh Bhardwaj.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Hannah Dreier, Jason Fagone and Julie Johnson, Shruti Swamy, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Kristen Arnett.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from Sarah Miller, James D. Walsh, Hanif Abdurraqib, Gabrielle Drolet, and Jeremiah David.
A banger of a Christmas story, best of 2023, and more
“I have enjoyed many happy Christmases and plenty of disappointing ones, like the one I spent eating alone at a Waffle House due to an ice storm, or the Christmas my father accused all the unmarried relatives of being gay. But of all the sad Yuletides of my life, the one I spent guarding $100,000 […]
If Proust Ate Pringles — On Memory, Loss, and the Persistence of Heineken
“That was the definitive goodbye, but when a loved one dies of a terminal illness they don’t die just once. They are, instead, dying over and over again, as grim milestones accumulate with you powerless to arrest the dawning inevitability of the final, conclusive death.”
The History of Fireworks, Gunpowder, and Why We Love Big ol’ Fire
“Our Bommy Nights certainly felt like more of a folk event than being strongly allied to the Gunpowder Plot. And that’s probably because there’s some primal instinct in all of us, some genetic memory, that draws us to a bloody good fire.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this week’s Top 5 we have lessons from apartheid, clever Claude, feeling bodies anew, the power of wax, and free mining.


