Featuring stories from Paul Kix, Matthieu Aikins, Matt Alt, Elisa Gabbert, and Sophie Elmhirst.
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Posted inNewsletter
600? Is That Even Possible?
“There are bookshelves in every room of my home except the bathroom, and I often squirrel away small books as emergency reading to be carried in purses and backpacks, for buses, trains, and waiting rooms.” Well, here we are. We’ve been rounding up our five favorite stories of the week for more than 12 years […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Life of a Gun
“This Mossberg MC2c pistol travelled from Texas before it hit the black market, ending up at a 2021 St. Paul mass shooting.”
Posted inFeature
Best of 2025: The Most Popular Editors’ Picks of the Year
These audience hits were the most-viewed picks on our site in 2025.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
“How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.”
Posted inUncategorized
A Colorful Addition and the Week’s Top 5
“Humans are besotted with color and we always have been. We love it so much we will breathe it, eat it, drink it, and look at it until our eyes roll back in our heads. We will paint with it, paint the world with it, paint ourselves with it. We will go to the ends […]
Posted inNewsletter
A “Super” Walk of Contradictions (and Our Top 5)
“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 […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Few Good Men
“Jordan Neely’s killer and the racist violence at the heart of the American imperial project.”
Posted inNonfiction
The Race That Turned to Ruin
“Fifteen teams lifted off from Switzerland in gas ballooning’s most audacious race. Three days later, two of them drifted into Belarusian airspace—but only one would survive.”
